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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap..„_/\. Copyright No.. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 



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HENRY C. VEDDER 

Profess 07' in Crozer Theological Seminary 



REVISED EDITION 



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PHILADELPHIA 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 

1420 Chestnut Street 



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Copyright 1897 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 

entered at stationers* hall, london 

All Rights Reserved 



tfrom tbe Society's own Ipress 



THB LIBRARY 
OP CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



i 



PREFACE 



When the " Short History of the Baptists'* 
was first published, in 1891, it was the convic- 
tion of both author and publishers that a his- 
tory of our denomination, written in an inter- 
esting style, yet with scholarly accuracy, not so 
voluminous as to repel readers and cheap 
enough to be owned by the poorest, was a 
greatly needed book. The gratifying sale of 
the book has indicated that Baptists have found 
in it at least some approach to what they 
needed. The publishers have decided to re- 
issue it in a new dress, at a price that certainly 
puts it within the reach of anybody who cares 
to have it. 

The author has taken advantage of the op- 
portunity to revise the book throughout. This 
has involved many corrections, and the practi- 
cal rewriting of several chapters. Considerable 
new matter has been added, the omission of 
appendixes, index, and some other things not 
essential to this edition making this possible. 

To the young Baptists of America the author 
especially dedicates this edition, in the hope 

3 



4 PREFACE 

that as they read in it what a New Testament 
church was, what the churches of their fathers 
in the faith have been, what trials and suffer- 
ings have been borne in the past, what a glori- 
ous heritage is theirs in the present, they may 
be more intelligent, more loyal, more devoted 
followers of their Lord, and more and more 
abound unto all good works. 

Crozer Theological Seminary, March, 1897. 



CONTENTS 



PART I 

The Primitive Church 

CHAPTER I 
The New Testament Churches, 9 

CHAPTER II 
Marks of Degeneracy and Corruption, . . 25 

CHAPTER III 
The Church in the Wilderness, .... 41 

PART 11 

The Persecuted Church 

CHAPTER IV 
The Church Reappears, 57 

CHAPTER V 
The Anabaptists of Switzerland, .... 75 

CHAPTER VI 
The German Anabaptists, 92 

CHAPTER VII 
The Fanatical Anabaptists, 109 

CHAPTER VIII 
Men no Simons and his Followers, . . . .120 

5 



6 CONTENTS 

PART III 

The Evangelizing Church 

CHAPTER IX 
The English Baptists — Origin and Doctrines, 135 

CHAPTER X 
The English Baptists — The Struggle for 

Liberty, 147 

CHAPTER XI 
English Baptists — Freedom and Growth, . 164 

CHAPTER XII 
Baptists in the American Colonies, . . .189 

CHAPTER XIII 
Baptists in jhe United States — The Period 
of Expansion, 213 

CHAPTER XIV 
Baptists in the United States — The Days of 
Controversy, 232 

CHAPTER XV 
Baptists in the United States — The Period 
of Evangelism and Education, . . . .252 

CHAPTER XVI 
Baptists in the United States — Irregular 
Baptist Bodies, 271 

CHAPTER XVII 

Baptists in Other Countries, 283 

CHAPTER XVIII 
Progress of Baptist Principles, 311 



PART I 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 



SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 



CHAPTER I 

THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES 




iO ye therefore, and make disciples of 
all the nations, baptizing them into 
the name of the Father, and of the 



Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them 
to observe all things whatsoever I commanded 
you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
the end of the world." In this parting in- 
junction of the risen Lord to his disciples, 
which the Duke of Wellington aptly called the 
marching orders of the ministry, we have the 
office of the Christian Church for the first 
time defined. In obedience to this command 
the early Christians preached the gospel, 
founded churches, and taught obedience to 
Christ as the fundamental principle of the 
Christian life. And though many of them 
could say with Paul that they spent their days 
' 'in labor and travail, in watchings often, in 
hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold 

9 



10 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and nakedness/' they found it a faithful say- 
ing that their Lord was with them alway. In 
so far as the church in all ages has been obe- 
dient to Christ's command it has experienced 
the truth of this promise. 

A Christian church potentially existed from 
the day when two disciples of John the Bap- 
tist followed Jesus and believed on him as the 
Messiah (John i : 35-40), but Pentecost marks 
its definite beginning. It is probably this idea 
that has led so many writers to call Pente- 
cost the birthday of the church. What ex- 
isted before in germ then came into full, con- 
scious being. The descent of the Holy Spirit, 
according to Christ' s promise, was the prepara- 
tion for the great missionary advance, of which 
the conversion of three thousand on that one 
day was the first-fruits. Not only did this 
multitude hear the word and believe, but on 
the same day they were " added to the 
church, ' ' which can only mean that they were 
baptized. It was once urged, as an objection 
to the teaching and practice of Baptists re- 
garding baptism, that the immersion of so 
many people on a single day is physically im- 
possible. The missionary history of our own 
time has silenced this objection forever, by 
giving us a nearly parallel case. In 1879, at 
Ongole, India, two thousand two hundred and 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES I I 

twenty-two Telugu converts were baptized on 
a single day by six ministers, two administering 
the ordinance at a time, the services being con- 
ducted with all due solemnity, and occupying 
in all nine hours. 

It need not surprise us that on the day of 
Pentecost baptism immediately followed con- 
version. That, indeed, seems to have been 
the rule throughout the apostolic period, and 
without doubt modern Baptists have in this re- 
spect departed too far from the apostolic prac- 
tice. It is true, that these converts were Jews, 
that they only needed to be convinced that 
Jesus was the promised Messiah, and to sub- 
mit to him as Lord to make them fit subjects 
for baptism ; as it is also true that, with the 
prospect of persecution and even death before 
them, there was no temptation to make a false 
profession. This made possible and prudent 
a haste that in our day might be dangerous ; 
but the principle should be recognized and 
admitted, as taught by all New Testament 
precedent, that no more time should separate 
baptism from conversion than is necessary to 
ensure credible evidence of a genuine change 
of heart. 

That all those added to the church at Jeru- 
salem on the day of Pentecost were capable of 
making and did make intelligent personal con- 



12 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

fession of faith, is as certain as words can 
make anything. Nor is there the slightest in- 
dication in the New Testament writings that, 
during the apostolic age, any were received 
into the churches save those who had come to 
years of personal responsibility and under- 
standing. The fundamental constitution of 
the churches founded by the apostles, or by 
others under their sanction, may be briefly 
described in these words : "The church is a 
spiritual body, consisting only of those regen- 
erated by the Spirit of God, and baptized on 
a personal profession of faith. ' ' 

A spiritual body, not lacking visibility, be- 
cause of its spirituality, but a visible body be- 
cause it is before all things spiritual. "Ex- 
cept a man be born anew (anothen, from above) 
he cannot see the kingdom of God," said our 
Lord to Nicodemus. And again he states 
the truth yet more emphatically, this time 
with a reference to baptism, the symbol of the 
new birth, " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
except a man be born of water and the Spirit 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ' ' 
(John 3 : 1-2 1). This new birth, the work 
of the Holy Spirit, is conjoined to "faith," 
"belief" in Christ on the part of man, and 
as its result man is justified in the sight of 
God (1 Peter 1 : 5, 9 ; Rom. 5:1; Gal. 2 : 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES I 3 

20; Heb. 10 : 38 ; 11 : 6). The necessity 
of a new birth through faith in Christ is every- 
where assumed in the Epistles as a truth too 
familiar to be formally stated. It is the pos- 
tulate, without which the apostolic writings 
cannot possibly be understood. 

In the case of adults this is now granted by 
all evangelical Christians ; no adult would be 
received into membership in an evangelical 
church except on profession of personal faith 
in Christ. Yet the Westminster Confession 
affirms that the church "consists of all those 
throughout the world that profess the true re- 
ligion, together with their children. ' ' Those 
who hold this theory generally assume that a 
continuity of life unites the Old Dispensation 
and the New. As children were by birth heirs 
of the promise through Abraham, so they are 
assumed to be by birth heirs of promise 
through Christ. In this view the New Dispen- 
sation is organically one with the Old ; bap- 
tism merely replaces circumcision, the church 
replaces the synagogue and temple, the 
ministry replaces the priesthood, while the 
spirit of all continues unchanged. It appears 
to Baptists, on the other hand, to be clearly 
taught in Scripture that the New Dispensation, 
though a fulfilling and completion of the Old, 
is radically different from it. Under the Old 



14 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Dispensation a child was an heir of promise 
according to the flesh, but under the New 
Dispensation natural birth does not make him 
a member of the kingdom of God ; he must 
be born from above, born of the Spirit. The 
church has for its foundation principle a per- 
sonal relation of each soul to Christ, and not 
a bond of blood. 

A candid student, moreover, cannot ignore 
the absolute silence of the Scriptures regarding 
the baptism of infants ; and the more that si- 
lence is considered the more significant it be- 
comes. Jesus took little children in his arms 
and declared that of the childlike is the king- 
dom of God (Matt. 19 : 14), but he nowhere 
authorized baptism save when preceded by- 
faith. The cases where whole households 
were baptized do not fairly warrant the infer- 
ence that they contained infants, as is now 
frankly admitted by the competent scholars of 
all denominations. Either they afford no suf- 
ficient ground for positive inference of any 
kind (as in the case of Stephanas, 1 Cor. 1 : 
16 ; 16 : 15), or they absolutely forbid the in- 
ference that infants were among the baptized 
(as in the case of the jailer at Philippi, where 
all who were baptized first had the gospel 
preached to them, Acts 16 : 32, 33). The 
case of Lydia and her household is often cited 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES I 5 

as one that proves infant baptism, but it is 
impossible to infer from the narrative (Acts 
16 : 14, 15), anything certain, or even proba- 
ble, regarding Lydia's family. Whether she 
was ever married, or whether she ever had 
children, or whether her children were not all 
dead or grown up, are matters of pure conjec- 
ture. It is possible to guess any of these 
things, and a dozen besides, but guesses are 
not fair inferences, still less proofs. 

Those who believe in a mixed church mem- 
bership, including unregenerate and regenerate, 
often cite the parable of the tares (Matt. 
13 : 24-3,0). The field, they say, represents 
the church, and as the tares and wheat were to 
be suffered to grow together till the harvest, so 
the regenerate and unregenerate are to be in- 
termingled in the church. It is a decisive ob- 
jection to this plausible theory that our Lord 
himself interpreted this parable to his^disciples 
(Matt. 13 : 36-43), and declared that the field 
represents, not the church, but the world ; the 
tares being separated from the wheat in the 
final judgment of mankind. 

If infants are members of the church, 
equally with adults, it follows that they are 
equally entitled to all its privileges. If they 
are fit subjects for baptism, they are fit subjects 
for the Lord's Supper — whoso denies this cer- 



1 6 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tainly assumes the burden of proving the rea- 
sonableness of his denial. There is nowhere 
in Scripture any authority to give the former 
ordinance, and to withhold the latter. The 
Greek Church recognizes the fact that infant 
baptism logically requires infant communion, 
and has the courage of its logic ; but other 
Pedobaptist bodies save part of the truth, at 
the expense of consistency, by denying partici- 
pation in the Lord's Supper to those baptized 
in infancy until these have reached years of 
understanding, and have made a public pro- 
fession of faith. 

The church at Jerusalem, composed of be- 
lievers baptized on profession of personal faith 
in Jesus Christ, "continued steadfastly in the 
apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the break- 
ing of bread and the prayers. ' ' There is no 
record in the New Testament that any joined 
in the breaking of bread, which is the usual 
term for the celebration of the Lord's Supper 
or communion, without first having been bap- 
tized. What is stigmatized, therefore, as 
' ' close ' ' communion is simply strict adher- 
ence to scriptural order — -an order that bodies 
forth the spiritual significance of the two ordi- 
nances delivered to his church by Christ : 
baptism, as the emblem of the new birth, fol- 
lowing immediately upon that birth, and being 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES I 7 

administered but once ; the Lord's Supper, 
the emblem of union with Christ and spir- 
itual partaking of his nature, following and be- 
ing often repeated. In coming to the table 
of the Lord, who shall venture to add to or 
take from the terms prescribed by himself and 
by apostolic example ? Precisely because the 
table is the Lord's, and not theirs, his obe- 
dient followers are constrained to yield to his 
will. 

Such was the first Christian church, as to 
constitution and ordinances ; and such in these 
particulars, the churches of Christ continued 
to be to the close of the apostolic era. Of 
organization there was at first none ; this de- 
veloped as the need of it became manifest. 
The first step was the appointment of deacons, 
in order to relieve the apostles from the labor 
and responsibility of distributing alms. These 
officers were chosen by the entire church, 
which is thus seen to have been a democracy 
from the first, and set apart to their work by 
prayer and laying on of hands — an apostolic 
precedent that Baptists have not always been 
careful to follow. The appointment of pastors 
to have oversight of the churches, as their 
numbers increased, was the next step, so that 
the apostles might be free to give themselves 
to their specific work of evangelization. We 

B 



1 8 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

read, "And when they [Barnabas and Paul] 
had appointed for them elders in every church, 
and had prayed with fasting, they commended 
them to the Lord, on whom they had be- 
lieved. ' ' The word translated ' ' appoint ' ' is 
conceded by all scholars to signify "to stretch 
forth the hand/' probably for the purpose of 
voting. This is held to indicate that the con- 
gregations chose each their own pastor, the 
apostles setting apart the chosen ones with 
prayer, and, as is implied in other passages, 
with the laying on of hands. With the elec- 
tion of pastors, the organization of the church 
became complete, and in the New Testament 
there is no evidence of any further ecclesiasti- 
cal machinery. The officer variously called 
"bishop," "elder," "pastor," was the leader, 
overseer, director. In the churches of Asia 
Minor there seems to have been a plural elder- 
ship, but whether in such cases one was the 
bishop par excellence, or all exercised joint au- 
thority, there is no indication, and probably 
much depended on the character of the men. 
Any supremacy, however, was due at the first, 
not to official rank, but to personal qualities. 
Simple in organization and democratic in 
government, the New Testament churches 
were independent of each other in their in- 
ternal affairs, There is no instance of a single 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES 1 9 

church, or of any body of churches, undertak- 
ing to control the action of another, or of a 
church being overruled by superior ecclesiasti- 
cal authority. To the teaching of apostles 
guided by the Spirit of God, they did, indeed, 
defer much, and rightly • but not so much to 
the apostolic office as the Spirit of God speak- 
ing through the apostle. The so-called coun- 
cil of Jerusalem, which is the nearest approach 
to the control of local churches by exterior 
authority (presbytery), was held while the 
local churches throughout Palestine were in 
a chaotic state, if indeed they may be said to 
have had an existence. Its authority was 
rather moral than ecclesiastical, and its deci- 
sion was final rather because it was felt to be 
the wisest solution of a grave question than 
because it was imposed by ecclesiastical powers 
and enforced by ecclesiastical discipline. 

The church, in the broadest sense of the 
term, in the New Testament, includes all the 
regenerate living in obedience to Christ. 
Hence, though for convenience of administra- 
tion divided into local congregations, inde- 
pendent of each other as to internal manage- 
ment, it is still the one body of Christ. The 
several churches owe to each other whatever 
of loving service it is in their power to render. 
The interdependence and fraternity of the 



20 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

churches is a broader and more precious truth 
than their independence. If the former, when 
abused, leads to centralization and prelacy, the 
latter, pushed to extremes, leads to disintegra- 
tion, discord, and weakness. The apostles 
urged upon churches as well as upon indi- 
viduals the duty of bearing one another's 
burdens, comforting each other in trouble, 
assisting each other in need, and generally co- 
operating to further the interests of the king- 
dom of God. 

The worship of the early Christians was 
simple and spiritual. The disciples met on 
the evening of the day on which their Lord 
rose from the dead, and from that time for- 
ward the first day of the week — the Lord's 
Day it was soon called — has been observed as 
the special Christian day of worship. For 
some time those Christians who had been 
Jews probably continued to observe the sev- 
enth day, or Sabbath, in their usual manner. 
There is no evidence, however, that among 
the Gentile converts the observance of the 
Sabbath was ever taught, except by those ex- 
treme Judaizers who would also have the Gen- 
tile converts circumcised and obligated to keep 
the whole Jewish law. For a brief time after 
the day of Pentecost, every day appears to 
have been a day of worship, as it even now is 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES 2 1 

with churches during a season of special re- 
vival ; and the communion was at this time 
celebrated daily. At a later period it was 
celebrated, apparently, every Lord's Day, 
though there is nothing to indicate that this 
was regarded as obligatory. Any Baptist 
church, however, that should choose to spread 
the table of the Lord every Lord's Day would 
have sufficient Scripture precedent to justify it 
in so doing. 

In the apostolic age, the services of public 
worship consisted of prayer, praise, and the 
preaching of the word, probably with reading 
of the Old Testament writings, and of the New 
Testament writings as they appeared and were 
circulated through copies. In these respects 
the first churches, as was natural, no doubt 
followed the customs of the Jewish synagogues, 
to which their members had been accustomed 
from infancy. Music filled an important place 
in this worship, as we may infer from the apos- 
tle's reference to the "psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs" as in common use. The 
chanting of psalms, antiphonal and otherwise, 
was no doubt a marked feature of Christian 
worship from the first, especially among those 
educated as Jews. Traces of ritual are found 
in the New Testament, not only in the Lord's 
Prayer and the doxologies, but in rhythmical 



2 2 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

passages in the apostolic writings. But this 
ritual was simple, plastic, voluntary ; not a 
rigid and required service. Nothing is more 
marked in the spiritual life of the early church, 
so far as it is disclosed in the Acts and Epis- 
tles, than its spontaneity and freedom from 
the bondage of formalism. This is, of course, 
more markedly manifest in the informal gather- 
ings, closely resembling the modern prayer 
meeting, that supplemented the more public 
and general assemblies of the Lord's Day. 
These, however, like the agafiae, or love feasts, 
that for a time accompanied the celebration of 
the Supper, were liable to abuse, and against 
disorderly proceedings in them we find the 
Apostle Paul warning the Corinthian church. 

For a time there prevailed in the church at 
Jerusalem a virtual community of goods, and 
this so-called i ' Christian Communism ' ' is in 
these latter days often held up to Christians as 
an example for universal imitation. "And 
the multitude of them that believed, " says the 
record, "were of one heart and soul; and 
not one of them said that aught of the things 
which he possessed was his own ; but they had 
all things in common. . . For neither was 
there among them any that lacked, for as many 
as were possessed of lands or houses sold them, 
and brought the price of the things that were 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES 23 

sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet • and 
distribution was made unto each according as 
any one had need. " It is evident to one who 
reads the entire account that this was a purely 
voluntary act on the part of the richer be- 
lievers, prompted by a desire to relieve those 
whom the peculiar emergency had. made spe- 
cially needy. The optional nature of the sales, 
and gifts is evident from the words of Peter to 
Ananias, who with Sapphira conspired to lie to 
the Holy Spirit: "Whiles it [the property 
Ananias had sold] remained, did it not remain 
thine own? And after it was sold, was it not 
in thy power?" To sell all one's goods and 
distribute unto the poor was not a general con- 
dition of discipleship, even at this time and 
place. But there is no reason to suppose that 
after the temporary stress had been relieved, 
this community of goods continued among 
even the Jerusalem brethren, while there is 
every reason to believe that no other church 
in the apostolic age practised anything of the 
kind. There is entire silence on the subject 
in the Epistles and the remainder of the Acts 
— a thing inconceivable if Christian commun- 
ism had been a fundamental principle of the 
apostolic churches. It is not wise or fair to 
draw a sweeping conclusion as to present duty 
from premises so narrow and uncertain. 



24 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The external history of the apostolic church 
is barely outlined in the New Testament. It 
may be described as a succession of missionary 
tours, in the course of which every part of the 
Roman Empire was traversed, and churches 
were planted in every province. Especially 
were the great cities, the centers of influence 
and power, visited at a very early period. 
Through his companion, the "beloved phy- 
sician/' Luke, the journeyings and labors of 
Paul are known to us in considerable detail. 
Had John Mark performed a similar service 
for Barnabas and Peter, and had some other 
disciple made a record of John's missionary 
tours, our knowledge of the apostolic era 
would have been vastly increased. Enough 
is known, however, to justify our wonder at 
the rapidity with which the new leaven spread 
through the known world. It has been esti- 
mated, though this must necessarily be pure 
guess work, that when John, the last of the 
apostles, passed away, near the close of the 
first century, the number of Christians in the 
Roman Empire could not have been less than 
one hundred thousand. In so short a time 
the grain of mustard seed had become a tree. 




CHAPTER II 

MARKS OF DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 

EFORE the last of the apostles had 
passed away, there were unmistaka- 
ble signs of degeneracy and corrup- 
tion in the Christian churches. Warnings 
against heresies and false teachers, not as fu- 
ture dangers but as present, are found in all 
of the later New Testament writings. From 
the very first the preaching of the cross was to 
the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks 
foolishness ; and even when Jews and Greeks 
were converted they endeavored to amalga- 
mate the old religion with the new. In spite 
of our Lord's assurance that the new wine 
could not be put into the old bottles without 
the loss of both, this attempt went on. Pro- 
foundly as the religion of the Jews differed 
from that of the Greeks and of other heathen 
nations, yet all pre-Christian religions had one 
element in common — they promised salvation 
to those who would attain the scrupulous ob- 
servance of ecclesiastical rites. The note of 
all religions before Christianity was salvation 

25 



26 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

by works ; Christianity alone taught salvation 
by faith. 

The efforts of converts imperfectly converted 
to assimilate Christianity to their former faith 
were only too successful. They failed to grasp 
the fundamental principles of the new religion, 
that each soul's destiny is the result of a per- 
sonal relation to Jesus Christ, that eternal life 
is not the mere escape from retribution here- 
after, but that it begins here in an intimate 
and vital union with the Son of God. They 
imagined that eternal destiny is settled by 
outward act, that the wrath of God may be 
averted by rites and ceremonies. The natural 
result was the substitution of formalism for 
spirituality, devotion to the externals of religion 
taking the place of living faith. To this one 
root may be traced in turn every one of the 
corruptions of the church, all of its aberrations 
of doctrine and practice. So soon as the 
churches founded by the apostles lost sight of 
the truth that man must be born again, and 
that this new birth is always associated with 
personal faith in Christ, the way was prepared 
for all that followed. 

We may trace three tendencies toward de- 
generation, all proceeding from this common 
cause ; these are : the idea of a Holy Catholic 
Church, the ministry a priesthood, and sacra- 



DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 2/ 

mental grace. The churches were conceived 
of as constituting one Church, not spiritual 
merely, but visible, extending throughout the 
world and therefore catholic (/. e. universal). 
Outside of this Church was no assurance of 
salvation, and schism, or separation from this 
visible body, was the greatest of sins a Chris- 
tian could commit. 

The first step in degeneracy, chronologically 
and perhaps logically, was the attribution of 
some mystical or magical power to baptism. 
It must be confessed that there are a few pas- 
sages in the New Testament writings which, 
taken by themselves, would favor this view : 
1 i Except a man be born of water and the 
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God" (John 3 : 3). " Which also after a 
true likeness doth now save you, even bap- 
tism " (1 Peter 3 : 14). " Arise and be 
baptized, and wash away thy sins ' ' (Acts 2 2 : 
16). If passages like these stood alone, un- 
modified, we might be compelled to the con- 
clusion that faith alone, without baptism, does 
not avail to save. By ignoring to a great de- 
gree those other and relatively numerous pas- 
sages in which the spirit is exalted above the 
letter, and faith is made the vital principle of 
the Christian life instead of ritual, the churches 
soon made outward rites of more significance 



28 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

than inward state. Baptism was regarded, not 
perhaps as absolutely necessary to salvation, but 
as so necessary an act that, if it could not be 
performed precisely in accordance with Christ's 
command and apostolic precedent, some simul- 
acrum of it must be substituted. 

The early Christians were indeed justified in 
laying great stress on the importance of obey- 
ing Christ in baptism. It seems never to have 
occurred to them, as it has occurred to Chris- 
tians of recent times, to evade this command, 
because to obey was inconvenient or distaste- 
ful ; or on the avowed ground that something 
else might be substituted for the act com- 
manded that would be more accordant with 
the delicate sensibilities of cultivated and re- 
fined people. Their obedience was implicit, 
ready, complete. Its one fault was an excess 
of virtue — an attempt to obey in cases where 
obedience was impossible. When water in 
sufficient quantities for immersion was wanting, 
there could be no proper baptism ; but, as 
baptism was now conceived to be so very im- 
portant, something must be done, and water 
was in such cases poured upon the head thrice, 
in quantities as profuse as possible no doubt, 
thus counterfeiting immersion as nearly as 
might be. The true principle was missed — 
that where obedience is impossible God ac- 



DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 29 

cepts the willingness to obey for obedience 
itself ; and the wrong principle was adopted — 
that God can be obeyed by doing something 
other than what he commands. 

We find the first step in the departure from 
the New Testament norm, in the document 
known as ' ' The Teaching of the Twelve Apos- 
tles, ' ' which scholars are now inclined to assign 
to about the year 120 a. d. The injunction 
regarding baptism is : " Now concerning bap- 
tism, thus baptize ye : having first uttered all 
these things, baptize into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 
in running water. But if thou hast not run- 
ning water, baptize in other water ; and if 
thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if 
thou hast neither, pour water upon the head 
thrice, into the name of the Father, and Son, 
and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let 
the baptizer and the baptized fast, and what- 
soever others can ■ but the baptized thou shalt 
command to fast for two or three days before. " 
By the time of Justin Martyr (about 150 
a. d. ) the process of identifying the sign 
(baptism) with the thing signified (regenera- 
tion) had made such progress that he calls 
baptism ' ' the water-bath of regeneration ' ' ; 
and where we should say, ' ' They are bap- 
tized," Justin says, "They are regenerated." 



30 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

From this time baptism is no longer regarded 
as merely a type or symbol of regeneration, 
but the, means by which the Spirit of God 
effected, or at least completed, regeneration. 
In the writings of the Ante-Nicene church 
Fathers, the use of ' ' regenerate ' ' to mean 
' ' baptize ' ' is so common as to be almost the 
rule. For a time, doubtless, the usage was 
figurative, but the figure was soon lost sight of, 
and baptism was accepted as a literal means of 
regeneration. 

One of the first practical consequences of 
this new doctrine regarding baptism was the 
usage known as "clinic" baptism (from 
kline^ a couch), or the baptism of those sup- 
posably sick unto death. The first recorded 
case of this kind, though others may have 
occurred before, is that of Novatian. Being 
very ill and supposed to be near death, yet 
desiring to be baptized and wash away his sins, 
water was brought and poured about him as he 
lay on his couch, immersion being thus simu- 
lated as closely as possible under the circum- 
stances. Novatian recovered, however, or we 
should probably never have heard of this case, 
and afterward entered the ministry, but the 
sufficiency of his clinic baptism was from the 
first disputed. The question of the validity 
of such baptisms was submitted to Cyprian, 



DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 3 I 

Bishop of Africa (about 250 a. d.), and in 
one of the letters of that ecclesiastic we have 
an elaborate discussion of the matter. He was 
asked, he tells us, " of those who obtain God's 
grace in sickness and weakness, whether they 
are to be accounted legitimate Christians, for 
that they are not to be washed, but affused 
{non loti sunt, sed perfusi^) with the saving 
waters." His chief argument was one since 
common among mutilators of the ordinance, 
that a little water would answer as well as 
much. His conclusion was that ' ' the sprin- 
kling of water (aspersio) prevails equally with 
the washing of salvation ; and that when this 
is done in the church, when the faith both of 
receiver and giver is sound, all things hold and 
may be consummated and perfected by the 
majesty of the Lord, and by the truth of 
faith." 

It will be noted by the attentive reader of 
these words that the decision . rests wholly on 
the sacramentalist notion that baptism conveys 
God's saving grace. It was a natural conclu- 
sion by those who held this view that God's 
grace could work with a little water as well as 
with more. But it was long before Cyprian's 
view fully prevailed in the church. It was 
agreed, to be sure, that clinic baptism would 
suffice for salvation, but it was felt to be an 



32 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

incomplete and unsatisfactory form, and ordi- 
nation was long refused those who had been 
subjects of this mutilated ceremony. The idea 
that affusion would serve as baptism in other 
than cases of extreme necessity made its way 
very slowly in the church, and that form of 
administration had no official sanction until 
the Synod of Ravenna, in 131 1, decided that 
' i baptism is to be administered ... by trine 
aspersion or immersion. " 

The first clinic baptisms, as we have seen, 
were performed by so surrounding the body of 
the sick person with water that he might be 
said to be immersed in water. It was, how- 
ever, a short and easy step to diminish the 
quantity of water, and then to apply it to other 
than sick persons. The practice of perfusion 
and affusion gradually increased from the time 
of Novatian, though for several centuries im- 
mersion continued to be the prevailing admin- 
istration of the ordinance. Aspersion was very 
uncommon until the seventeenth century. 

Another consequence of the idea of baptis- 
mal regeneration was the baptism of infants. 
It logically followed, if those unbaptized were 
unregenerate, that all who died in infancy were 
unsaved. This was a conclusion from which 
the Christian consciousness of the early church 
revolted as strongly as that of our own day, 



DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 33 

which utterly rejects the Westminster declara- 
tion that " elect infants" are saved, with its 
logical corollary that non-elect infants are lost. 
The true solution of the difficulty would have 
been found in a return to apostolic ideas of the 
nature and function of baptism ; but a contrary 
idea having become too deeply settled in the 
church for such a return, the only alternative 
solution was to baptize infants, so that they 
might be regenerated and saved if they died 
before reaching the years in which personal 
faith is possible. 

Just when infant baptism began is uncertain ; 
scholars have disputed long over the question 
without arriving at any decisive proof. The 
passages often quoted from the writings of 
Justin and Irenaeus are admitted by candid 
Pedobaptist scholars to fall far short of proof 
that infants were baptized before 150 a. d. 
It is tolerably certain, however, that by the 
time of Tertullian (a. d. 150-220), the prac- 
tice was general, though by no means univer- 
sal. We know, for example, that Augustine, 
though the son of the godly Monica, was not 
baptized in infancy, but on personal profession 
of faith at the age of thirty-three. Similar 
cases were frequent without a doubt (Gregory 
of Nazianzum and Chrysostom are two others), 
though from this time on they became more 



34 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

rare, until after the sixth century the practice 
of infant baptism was universal, or nearly so. 
Nothing in the history of the Church did so 
much as this departure from apostolic prece- 
dent to prepare the way for the papacy. It 
introduced into the Church a multitude whose 
hearts were unchanged by the Spirit of God, 
who were worldly in aims and in life, and who 
sought for the worldly advancement of the 
Church that thus their own power and impor- 
tance might be magnified. This consumma- 
tion was doubtless aided and hastened by the 
rapid contemporary growth of the Church in 
numbers and its increase in worldly prosperity. 
In the section concerning baptism, already 
quoted from ' ' The Teaching of the Twelve 
Apostles/ ' the catechumenate is already rec- 
ognized, at least in germ. Baptism was no 
longer to be administered upon the mere con- 
fession of faith, but was to be preceded by a 
somewhat elaborate instruction, for which the 
first six chapters of the ' ' Teaching ' ' were 
originally devised. The catechumenate was 
not in itself a departure from the fundamental 
principles of the primitive church. There was 
a necessity, such as is felt by the missionaries 
in heathen lands at this day, of instructing 
converts in the first principles of the Christian 
faith. It is true now in heathendom as it was 



DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 35 

then, that a sufficient knowledge of the Chris- 
tian faith for salvation may be gained in a com- 
paratively brief time, while the convert is in a 
dense state of ignorance regarding all else that 
separates Christianity from his heathen faith. 
Accordingly, our own missionaries are com- 
pelled in some cases, perhaps in all, to exer- 
cise caution in the reception of those heathen 
who profess conversion, and to give them such 
preliminary instruction in Christian doctrine as 
will enable them intelligently to become disci- 
ples of Christ and members of the Christian 
church. But it is evident that instruction of 
this kind, prior to baptism, should be ex- 
tremely simple and elementary, and need not 
be greatly protracted. 

As soon as the catechumenate was an estab- 
lished institution in the Christian church, its 
system of instruction became elaborate and 
prolonged, and candidates were delayed in 
these schools of instruction for many months, 
even for several years, before they were al- 
lowed to be baptized. The tendency of such 
an institution was to foster the idea that men 
might be educated into Christianity, and to 
decrease the reliance of the church upon the 
agency of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of 
men. The practical result was to introduce 
many into the churches who had never been 



36 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

subjects of the regenerating grace of God, but 
had simply been instructed in Christianity as a 
system of theology or philosophy, and their 
intellectual assent to its teachings was accepted 
as equivalent to saving faith. What might 
have been and doubtless was at first an effect- 
ive agency for good, became an instrument for 
the corruption of the Church. While it flour- 
ished, however, from the second to the fifth 
centuries, the catechumenate was an evidence 
not to be controverted, that the general prac- 
tice of the Church was adult baptism. Its de- 
cline and the growth of infant baptism are 
synchronous. 

The idea of sacramental grace did not stop 
with the corruption of the doctrine of baptism, 
but extended to the communion, or eucharist, 
as it came to be generally called from the second 
century onward. There are passages in the early 
Fathers that amply justify the later doctrine 
known as the real presence and consubstantia- 
tion, if they do not go to the extreme length 
of transubstantiation. With the decrease of 
vital faith the increase of formalism kept 
pace, and the administration of the Lord's 
Supper, from being a simple and spiritual cere- 
mony, became surrounded by a cloud of ritual 
and finally developed into the mass of the 
Roman Church. Laying as great a stress as 



DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 37 

Luther did later upon the mere letter of Scrip- 
ture, the Church of the third and fourth cen- 
turies insisted that the words ' 6 This is my 
body ' ' were to be accepted by all faithful 
Christians as a literal statement of truth, and 
that Paul's words when he says that the broken 
bread is the body of Christ do not indicate a 
spiritual partaking of Christ's nature, but a 
literal and materialistic reception of it in and 
through the bread and wine. 

The development of the sacerdotal idea was 
an equally powerful agency in corrupting the 
Church. Though the idea of a priesthood in 
a church of Christ, other than the priesthood 
of all believers, is not found in the New Tes- 
tament, we do find it very early in the post- 
apostolic literature. For a time the Fathers 
seem to have used sacerdotal terms with a 
figurative rather than a literal meaning, but 
soon the figure disappeared and the literal 
sense only remained. By the end of the third 
century the idea was generally accepted that 
the clergy formed a sacerdotal order, a priestly 
caste quite separate from the laity. 

So great corruption in the idea of the func- 
tions of the ministry could hardly occur with- 
out some corresponding change in the form. 
What we might thus reasonably look for did, 
in fact, come to pass. In the New Testament 



38 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

we find presbyter-bishops, one office with two 
interchangeable titles ; but early in the second 
century we find bishops and presbyters — two 
offices, not one — the bishop being superior to 
his presbyters. But the bishop was as yet 
ruler of a single church, the diocesan episco- 
pate being of considerably later origin. We 
find it firmly established by the time of Cyp- 
rian. 

Another step in the progress of degeneracy 
was the growth of asceticism, traceable to the 
root-idea, salvation by works. The Mani- 
chaean heresy, though it was nominally re- 
jected by the church, was in part accepted. 
Its Persian dualism was agreeable to the spirit 
of the age. Teaching an eternal conflict be- 
tween spirit and matter, and that the latter is 
the source of all evil, this philosophy was easily 
reconciled with the idea of salvation by works. 
Sin was held to be the result of the union of 
man' s spirit with a body, and only by keeping 
the body under, mortifying the flesh by fasting 
and maceration, could sin be overcome. The 
contempt for marriage and the undue exalta- 
tion of virginity that appears in the Fathers, 
notably in Jerome, not only gave impetus to 
monachism and the celibacy of the clergy, 
with their vast train of evils, but laid the 
foundation for the exaltation of Mary above 



DEGENERACY AND CORRUPTION 39 

her Son, and the idolatries and blasphemies of 
Roman Catholicism. The doctrine of pen- 
ance, with its later accompaniment, the con- 
fessional, may be traced also to this same 
origin. 

It would be unprofitable to go further into 
the details of this doctrinal, ritual, and moral 
corruption of the Christianity of Christ into 
the Christianity of the Catholic Church. All 
the processes in this degeneration are tracea- 
ble to the one idea, that salvation is not the 
free gift of God through Christ, but some- 
thing to be earned by human effort, or pur- 
chased from a store of merits laid up by the 
saints — that, in spite of our Lord's assurance 
to the contrary, what is born of the flesh may 
be spirit. It is worth our while to note, how- 
ever, in conclusion, that the rapidity with 
which the doctrine, ritual, and polity of the 
early church degenerated, was directly propor- 
tioned to its growth in wealth and worldly 
prosperity. There is no lesson taught by the 
early church that needs to be learned now by 
Baptists more than this. So long as the 
Church was feeble, persecuted, and poor, 
though in some things it departed from the 
standard of the New Testament, it was com- 
paratively pure in both doctrine and life. Ad- 
versity refined and strengthened it ; prosperity 



40 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

weakened and corrupted it. What the perse- 
cutions of Nero and Domitian were powerless 
to accomplish, the patronage of Constantine 
and his successors did only too well. Bap- 
tists have had their period of adversity, when 
they inherited Christ's promise, "Blessed are 
ye when men shall reproach you, and perse- 
cute you, and say all manner of evil against 
you falsely, for my sake. ' ' Will they endure 
the harder test of prosperity, when they are 
great in numbers, in wealth, in influence, so 
that all men speak well of them ? 



CHAPTER III 

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS 




HOU art Peter, and upon this rock I 
will build my church, and the gates 
of Hades shall not prevail against 
it." Such was the reply of our Lord when 
his ever-confident disciple answered the ques- 
tion, "Who say ye that I am?" in the mem- 
orable words, then for the first time uttered, 
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God." The Church of Rome points to this 
text as conclusive proof of her claims to be 
God's vicegerent on earth, the true Church, 
against which the gates of Hades shall not pre- 
vail. It further points to its unbroken succes- 
sion, and a history which, if dim and uncer- 
tain at the first, since the fourth century at 
least has not a break, and not improbably ex- 
tends back to the apostolic era, if not to Peter 
himself. It challenges any of the bodies that 
dispute its claim to show an equal antiquity 
and a succession from the days of the apostles 
as little open to serious question. Those that 
accept this test and fail to meet it must con- 

41 



42 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

fess themselves schismatics and heretics, re- 
sisters of God, and doomed to overthrow 
here as well as condemnation hereafter. 

Many Protestants accept Rome's challenge 
while rejecting Rome's interpretation of our 
Lord's words, and regarding the "rock" on 
which the Church is to be builded as rather 
Peter' s confession than Peter himself. Angli- 
can divines have great faith in a pleasing tra- 
dition that the Church of England was founded 
by the Apostle Paul during a third missionary 
tour hinted at in the New Testament but not 
described ; and they flatter themselves that 
they thus establish an antiquity not second to 
that of Rome. Some Baptists have been be- 
trayed into a similar search for proofs of an- 
tiquity, misled by the idea that such proof is 
necessitated by the promise that ' ' the gates of 
Hades shall not prevail against ' ' the true 
church. If then, they reason, Baptist churches 
are true apostolic churches, they must have 
existed from the days of the apostles until 
now without break of historic continuity. 
This exaggerated notion of the worth of an- 
tiquity as a note of the true church is 
strengthened by the theory of baptism held 
by some, namely, that no one is baptized un- 
less he is immersed by one who has himself 
been immersed. This is to substitute for the 



THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS 43 

apostolic succession of "orders," which the 
Roman Church boasts, an apostolic succession 
of baptism. The theory compels its advocates 
to trace a visible succession of Baptist churches 
from the days of the apostles to our own, or 
to confess that proof is lacking of the valid 
baptism of any living man. 

Passing by this latter theory as of no pres- • 
ent importance save in its bearing on the ques- 
tion of antiquity, is it not evident that in ac- 
cepting the challenge of Rome Protestants in 
general, and Baptists in particular, commit as 
great an error in tactics as in exegesis ? To 
assume the necessity of an outward continuity 
in the life of the church is gratuitously to read 
into the words of our Lord what he carefully 
refrained from saying. Rome for her own 
purposes assumes the only possible import of 
the words to be that Christ's church will have 
a historic continuity that can be proved by 
documentary and other evidence. This is by 
no means a self-evident inference from what 
Jesus says. He promises indeed the ultimate 
victory of his church over all the forces of 
earth and hell that may be arrayed against 
her ; but he does not promise victory in every 
contest. 

There is in the Revelation of John a di- 
vinely given help toward the interpretation of 



44 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

our Lord's promise. The woman clothed with 
the sun (chap. 12), who is held by nearly all 
interpreters to represent the church, flees away 
to the wilderness to escape persecution and is 
there "nourished for a time, times and half a 
time, ,, while the nominal church itself be- 
comes apostate, a persecutor, the Harlot drunk 
with the blood of saints. That there should 
be a considerable period when the gates of 
Hades would appear to be prevailing against 
the church seems to be clearly implied in the 
Revelation. No one can read chapters twelve 
to fourteen inclusive of that book without be- 
ing impressed by the wonderful way in which 
the prophecies correspond to the history of 
Christianity. This at least is true if one is 
content to trace only general correspondence, 
to take a large view of both the prophecy and 
the history, and not attempt to fit each item 
of the one to a feature of the other. 

We may safely conclude, therefore, that 
what our Lord promised to his church is her 
ultimate, but not necessarily her continuous, 
triumph. A victorious campaign is not in- 
consistent with the loss of a battle and appar- 
ent disaster at some time during its progress. 
Christ's promise would not be broken though 
we should find the church at some period of 
history apparently overcome by Satan, and 



THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS 45 

suppressed, though no trace of it should be 
left in literature, though no organized bodies 
of Christians holding the faith in apostolic 
simplicity could be found anywhere in the 
world. The truth would still be, as he had 
promised, witnessed somewhere, somehow, by 
somebody. The church does not cease to be 
because it is driven into the wilderness. 

To Baptists, indeed, of all people, the ques- 
tion of tracing their history to remote antiquity 
should appear nothing more than an inter- 
esting study. Our theory of the church as 
deduced from the Scriptures requires no out- 
ward and visible succession from the apostles. 
If every church of Christ were to-day to be- 
come apostate, it would be possible and right 
for any true believers to organize to-morrow 
another church on the apostolic model of faith 
and practice, and that church would have the 
only apostolic succession worth having — a suc- 
cession of faith in the Lord Christ and obedi- 
ence to him. Baptists have not the slightest 
interest therefore in wresting the facts of his- 
tory from their true significance ; our reliance 
is on the New Testament, and not on an- 
tiquity i on present conformance to Christ' s 
teachings, not on an ecclesiastical pedigree, 
for the validity of our church organization, our 
ordinances, and our ministry. 



46 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

By some writers, who have failed to grasp 
this principle, there has been a distressful 
effort to show a succession of Baptist churches 
from the apostolic age until now. It is certain, 
as impartial historians and critics allow, that 
the early church, including the first century 
after the New Testament period, was organ- 
ized as Baptist churches are now organized 
and professed the faith that Baptist churches 
now profess. It is also beyond question that 
for fully four centuries before the Reformation 
there were bodies of Christians under various 
names, stigmatized by the Roman Catholic 
Church as heretics, who professed nearly — 
sometimes identically — the faith and practice 
of modern Baptists, and with whom we have a 
demonstrable historic connection. But a pe- 
riod of a thousand years intervenes, in which 
the only visible church of unbroken continuity 
was the Roman Church, which had far de- 
parted from the early faith. How is it pos- 
sible to trace during this time a succession of 
Baptist churches? 

Nevertheless, the attempt has been made, 
at one time or another, to identify as Baptists 
nearly every sect that separated from the Ro- 
man Church. It will not suffice to prove that 
most of these sects held certain doctrines from 
which the great body of Christians had de- 



THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS 47 

parted — doctrines that Baptists now hold, and 
that are believed by them to be clearly taught 
in the New Testament — or that the so-called 
heretics were often more pure in doctrine and 
practice than the body that assumed to be the 
only orthodox and Catholic Church. This is 
quite different from proving the substantial 
identity of these sects with modern Baptists. 
Just as, for example, it is easily shown that 
Methodists and Presbyterians hold a more 
biblical theology and approach nearer to 
apostolic practice than the Roman or Greek 
churches ; while yet all know that a consider- 
able interval separates them from Baptists. It 
is one thing to prove that the various heretical 
sects bore testimony, now one, now another, 
to this or that truth held by a modern denom- 
ination, and quite another thing to identify all 
or any of these sects with any one modern 
body. This is equally true, whether the in- 
vestigation be confined to polity or to the sub- 
stance of doctrine. 

One of the earliest bodies through which 
certain writers have sought to trace the line of 
Baptist descent is the Montanists, whose origin 
dated from about the year 150 a. d. Mon- 
tanism began in a protest against the corrupt 
life and teachings sanctioned by the degen- 
erated Church of the second century. It grad- 



48 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ually attracted to itself, as Dr. Schaff well says, 
"all the ascetic, rigoristic, and chiliastic ele- 
ments of the ancient church. ' ' Not at first so 
much a departure from the faith as a morbid 
overstraining of practical morality and dis- 
cipline, it speedily identified with itself many 
forms of fanaticism and false religious teaching 
— false because opposed to the Scriptures. It 
approved the doctrine of the modern Friends, 
that the gift of prophecy and special divine 
inspiration was perpetual in the church. It 
was the original propagandist of ' ' faith cure ' ' 
and pre-millenarian teachings. The Monta- 
nist prophets spoke with tongues, and when 
their prophecies conflicted with the Scriptures, 
a higher authority was asserted for the former 
than for the written word. 

This single note would serve to show a com- 
plete separation in spirit between Montanists 
and Baptists, whose fundamental belief is that 
in the canon of Scripture we have a complete 
and authoritative revelation from God, and 
that whatever contradicts the written word is 
of necessity to be rejected as untrue. One 
may trace a curious correspondence in many 
things between the history of Montanism and 
the rise in our own day of the sect known as 
Irvingites, though they prefer to call them- 
selves the Catholic Apostolic Church. The 



THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS 49 

one sect is as truly Baptist as the other. The 
Montanists, it may be added, were in polity 
no whit different from the Roman Catholic 
Church, both having abandoned the apostolic 
simplicity of Congregationalism for episcopacy. 

The Novatians (250 a. d.) and Donatists 
(311-415 a. d. ) are other sects through which 
some have fancied that the lineage of Baptists 
may be traced. These bodies were alike in 
two essentials : they differed in doctrine in no 
fundamental respect from the Catholic Church, 
but were mere schismatics on a question of 
polity. They were prelatic in government, 
having bishops rival to those of the Catholic 
Church, and though among their teachings 
there is some truth that Baptists of this day 
hold, there is much that we should not tole- 
rate for a moment. Our descent cannot be 
traced along this line. 

A group of sects, variously known as Man- 
ichaeans, Paulicians, Cathari, Bogomils, and 
Albigenses, having a practical continuity of 
belief if not an absolute historic connection 
with each other, is relied on by some Baptists 
as furnishing proof of our antiquity. These 
sects, though differing considerably in teach- 
ing, have one fundamental element in com- 
mon, that was furnished by the first named 
body. Manichaeism is not properly a form of 



50 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Christianity, but a distinct religion, as distinct 
as Mohammedanism. It originated in Persia, 
about 250 a. d., in the teachings of Mani. Its 
distinctive feature is a theodicy, rather than a 
theology, an explanation of the moral phe- 
nomena of the universe by the hypothesis of 
the eternal existence of two mutually exclusive 
principles or forces, one good and the other 
evil. These forces, conceived as personal, and 
corresponding to the God and Satan of the 
Christian theology, are in everlasting conflict, 
and neither can ever overcome the other. In 
Manichaeism the good spirit was represented 
as the creator of the world, but his work was 
vitiated by the agency of the evil spirit, which 
introduced sin and death. The Paulicians, 
accepting this dualistic system, taught that the 
world is the creation of the evil spirit, not of 
the good. 

Manichaeism, as it advanced from Persia 
through the Roman Empire, came into con- 
tact with Christianity, and freely borrowed 
such of the latter' s features as lent them- 
selves most easily to such grafting, but it was 
essentially an alien religion, and not a Christian 
heresy. The Paulicians, Cathari, Bogomils, 
and Albigenses, were more or less distinctively 
Christians, though they borrowed the dualistic 
theology, and attempted to incorporate it with 



THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS 5 I 

Scripture teaching. Manichaeism was also re- 
markable for its hierarchical system, which was 
as elaborate and rigid as Roman Catholicism. 
It would be difficult to name, in all the history 
of Christianity, a body that had less in com- 
mon with Baptists than this. In Augustine's 
day, though many (including himself for a 
time) were persuaded into accepting this re- 
ligion in lieu of Christianity, it had become a 
nursery of immorality. The division of those 
professing the religion into "hearers" and 
"perfect," the latter of whom were regarded 
as freed from the obligations of the moral law 
— precisely as the Christian doctrine of elec- 
tion was perverted by the Antinomians — lent 
itself readily to abuse, and the result followed 
that might have been foreseen. 

The Paulicians, Cathari, Bogomils, and Al- 
bigenses, have more superficial agreement with 
the views of Baptists. Nevertheless, their 
dualistic theories are essentially unchristian, 
and separate them sharply from such as pro- 
fess to be guided solely by the teachings of the 
word of God. For the most part they either 
rejected or thought lightly of the Old Testa- 
ment, and the Paulicians even refused to ac- 
knowledge part of the New. Like the Friends, 
they rejected water baptism in favor of the bap- 
tism of the Spirit bestowed on every believer at 



52 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

his conversion. They also rejected the Lord's 
Supper as an obligatory ordinance for all time. 
The Cathari substituted an agape, or love 
feast, in which believers partook of bread only, 
but not as a memorial of the body of Christ, 
broken for his people. A vein of fanaticism 
and of ascetic observances runs through the 
history of all these sects, due in part to their 
professed principles, and doubtless in part to 
be explained by their continued persecutions. 
In thus emphasizing the divergences of 
those sects from the teaching of the Bible, as 
Baptists have always understood that teaching, 
no denial is implied of the excellent Christian 
character manifested by the adherents of these 
erroneous views. In many instances the purest 
life of an age is to be found, not in the bosom 
of the Catholic Church, but among these de- 
spised and persecuted sectaries. Not one of 
them failed to hold and emphasize some vital 
truth that was either rejected or practically 
passed by in the Church that called itself or- 
thodox. God did not leave his truth with- 
out witnesses at any time. Now a sect, now 
an individual believer, like Arnold of Brescia 
or Savonarola, boldly proclaimed some precious 
teaching, perhaps along with what we must re- 
gard as pernicious error. But it is impossible 
to show that any one - person, or any one sect, 



THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS 53 

for a period of more than a thousand years, 
consistently and continuously held the entire 
body of truth that Baptists believe the Scrip- 
tures to teach, or even its vital parts. It is 
possible that with further research such proof 
may be brought to light : one cannot affirm 
that there was not a continuity in the outward 
and visible life of the churches founded by the 
apostles down to the time of the Reformation. 
To affirm such a negative would be foolish, 
and such an affirmation, from the nature of 
the case, could not be proved. What one 
may say, with some confidence, is that in the 
present state of knowledge no such continuity 
can be shown by evidence that will bear the 
usual historic tests. 

It ought always to be borne in mind, how- 
ever, that for the larger part of our information 
regarding those stigmatized as heretics we are 
indebted, not to their own writings, but to the 
works of their opponents. Only the titles re- 
main of the bulk of heretical writings ; and 
of the rest we have, for the most part, only 
such quotations as prejudiced opponents have 
chosen to make. That these quotations fairly 
represent the originals would be too much to 
assume. Even with this conceded, it still re- 
mains true that the more carefully one exam- 
ines such literature of the early and mediaeval 



54 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

church as relates to the various heretical sects, 
the stronger becomes his conviction that it is a 
hopeless task to trace the history of the apos- 
tolic churches by means of an unbroken out- 
ward succession. A succession of the true faith 
rrfay indeed be traced, in faint lines at times, 
but never entirely disappearing ; but a suc- 
cession of churches, substantially like those of 
our own faith and order in doctrine and polity 
— that is a will-o'-the-wisp, likely to lead the 
student into a morass of errors, a quagmire of 
unscholarly perversions of fact. 



PART II 



THE PERSECUTED CHURCH 




CHAPTER IV 

THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 

IHERE were Protestants before Prot- 
estantism, Reformers before the Re- 
formation. The corruption of the 
primitive churches and the development of 
Roman Catholicism was a logical process that 
extended over a period of centuries. As the 
Church diverged more and more widely from 
the faith once delivered to the saints, as the 
Papacy gradually extended its power over all 
Europe, except where the Greek Church suc- 
cessfully resisted its claims, it was inevitable 
that this tyranny should, from time to time, 
provoke revolts ; that against this apostasy 
there should be periodic reactions toward a 
purer faith. From the beginning of the 
twelfth century these uprisings within the 
Church became more numerous, until the 
various protests combined their forces, in large 
part unconsciously, to form the movement 
since known as the Reformation. 

It is a curious fact that each of these revolts 
against the corrupt doctrine and life of the 

57 



58 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Church seems to have had an independent 
origin within the Church itself. None of them 
is traceable to the earlier heresies and schisms. 
If there was any such connection, it was so 
subtle and so well concealed that no extant 
literature or other evidence can be adduced to 
prove the fact. But if we may not trace, by 
unbroken historical descent, a line of sects 
protesting against the corruptions and usurpa- 
tions of the Roman Catholic Church, and so 
establish the antiquity of any one modern 
Protestant denomination, it still remains an 
unquestioned historic fact that these successive 
revolts constituted a gradual and effective prep- 
aration for the general movement known as 
the Reformation, and for the rise of modern 
evangelical bodies. 

The earliest of these protests that took defi- 
nite form grew out of the work of Peter of 
Bruys. Not much is known of the life of this 
teacher ; it is said that he was a pupil of 
Abelard, he is found preaching in Southern 
France soon after the beginning of the twelfth 
century, and after twenty years of such labors 
he was burned as a heretic about the year 
1 126. His doctrines are known to us chiefly 
through his bitter enemy and persecutor, 
Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny, who 
wrote a book against the heresy of the Pe- 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 59 

trobrusians. With due allowance for the mis- 
takes honestly made by this prelate, we may 
deduce approximately the teachings of this 
body. 

We find their fundamental principle to be 
the rejection of tradition and an appeal to 
Scripture as the sole authority in religion. 
The abbot often complains in his treatise that 
these heretics will not yield to tradition or the 
authority of the church, but demand Scripture 
proof for everything ; because it would have 
been easy for him to confute them by quoting 
any quantity of passages from the Fathers, 
only these obstinate heretics w r ould have none 
of the Fathers. 

A second capital error ascribed to the Petro- 
brusians by their opponent is that they held 
the church to be a spiritual body, composed 
only of believers, and that baptism ought to be 
administered only to such as have believed on 
Christ. Among the sayings that the abbot 
quotes from these heretics are the following : 
1 ' The church of God does not consist in a 
multitude of stones joined together, but in the 
unity of believers assembled. ' ' Also, accord- 
ing to him, they denied " that children, before 
the age of understanding, can be saved by the 
baptism of Christ, or that another's faith can 
avail those who cannot exercise faith, since, ac- 



60 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

cording to them [the Petrobrusians] , not an- 
other's, but one's own faith, together with 
baptism, saves, as the Lord says, ' He who 
will believe and be baptized shall be saved, 
but he who will not believe shall be con- 
demned.' " " Infants, though baptized by 
you [Romanists], because by reason of age 
they nevertheless cannot believe, are by no 
means saved ; [that is to say, are not saved by 
baptism ; this is evidently what the Petrobru- 
sians taught, not a denial of the salvation 
of infants ; to a Romanist, denial of baptism 
was a denial of salvation, but not so to the 
Petrobrusians] ; hence it is idle and vain 
at that time to wet men with water, by 
which ye may wash away the filth of the body 
after the manner of men, but ye can by no 
means cleanse the soul from sin. But we wait 
for the proper time, and after a man is pre- 
pared to know God and believe in him, we do 
not (as you accuse us) rebaptize him, but we 
baptize him who can be said never to have 
been baptized — to have been washed with the 
baptism by which sins are washed away. ' ' 

A third capital error, according to the same 
authority, was that the Petrobrusians denied 
sacramental grace, especially the doctrine of 
transubstantiation, the keystone of the sacra- 
mental system : ' ' They deny, not only the 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 6 1 

truth of the body and blood of the Lord, daily 
and constantly offered in the church through 
the sacrament, but declare that it is nothing 
at all, and ought not to be offered to God." 
They say: "Oh, people, do not believe the 
bishops, priests, or clergy, who seduce you ; 
who, as in many things, so in the office of the 
altar, deceive you when they falsely profess to 
make the body of Christ, and give it to you 
for the salvation of your souls. They clearly 
lie. For the body of Christ was made only 
once by Christ himself in the Supper before his 
passion, and once for all at this time only was 
given to his disciples. Hence it is neither 
made by any one nor given to any one." 

These words convey an utter absurdity, that 
Christ, while still in the flesh, made and gave 
his body to his disciples ; but the absurdity is 
doubtless one of the abbot's errors. What is 
certain is the repudiation by the Petrobrusians 
of the sacrifice of the mass. 

These same stiffnecked heretics denied the 
doctrine of purgatory and of prayers for the 
dead, taught that churches ought not to be 
built, that crosses should be pulled down and 
destroyed, and the like. A few of their teach- 
ings were perhaps extreme and unwise, a not 
unnatural result of the vigor of their reaction 
against the false teaching and wicked practices 



62 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

current in the church ■ but in the main the be- 
liefs attributed to them are such as are firmly 
held to-day by Baptists the world over. It is 
true that Peter the Venerable assures us that 
they did not receive the Epistles as of equal 
authority with the Gospels, but this may easily 
be a misunderstanding or a perversion of what 
was actually taught and believed among them. 
It is evident that these ' ' errors ' ' of the 
Petrobrusians were what Baptists have always 
held to be precious and fundamental truths. 
Anybody of Christians that hold to the suprem- 
acy of the Scriptures, a church of the regen- 
erate only, and believers' baptism, are funda- 
mentally one with the Baptist churches of 
to-day, whatever else they may add to or omit 
from their statement of beliefs. Contempo- 
rary records have been sought in vain to estab- 
lish any essential doctrine taught by this con- 
demned sect that is inconsistent either with 
the teaching of Scripture or with the beliefs 
avowed in recent times by Baptists. With 
regard to the act of baptism contemporary . 
record says nothing. There was no reason 
why it should, unless there was some peculiar- 
ity in the administration of baptism among the 
Petrobrusians. It cannot be positively affirmed 
that they were exclusively immersionists ; but 
if they were, the fact would call for no special 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 63 

mention by contemporary writers, since im- 
mersion was still the common practice of the 
church in the twelfth century. 

There were other preachers of a pure gospel, 
nearly contemporary with Peter of Bruys and 
more or less closely connected with him. 
Henry of Lausanne (1116-1150) is described 
by some as a disciple of Peter, though others 
insist that he did not share Peter's heresies. 
Certain is it that at one time they were close 
companions, and the balance of evidence indi- 
cates that Henry of Lausanne was powerfully 
influenced by his predecessor and co-laborer. 
He was a monk of Clugny, who put off the 
cowl to become a preacher of righteousness. 
Like Luther, in later years, his first impulse of 
resistance to the church was caused by the 
wicked lives led by the clergy, and the corrup- 
tions not only tolerated but abetted if not 
openly practised by all the higher dignitaries. 
He is described as a man of great dignity of 
person, fiery eye, thundering voice, impetuous 
speech, mighty in the Scriptures. His preach- 
ing was largely scriptural, an exhortation to 
shun the prevalent corruption of life and seek 
righteousness. His labors in Southern France 
were abundant, and Bernard of Clairvaux, who 
in spite of his saintly character hated this 
heretic most heartily, describes the effect of 



64 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

his preaching to have been such that the 
churches were deserted, ' ' the way of the chil- 
dren of Christians is closed, the grace of bap- 
tism is refused them, and they are hindered 
from coming to heaven ; although the Saviour, 
with fatherly love, calls them, saying, ' Surfer 
little children to come unto me.' M 

In 1 148 this noble preacher and teacher was 
condemned by the Council of Rheims, not to 
suffer immediate martyrdom, but to undergo 
perpetual imprisonment, and he soon after 
died in solitary confinement. The words 
quoted from Bernard seem to prove that he 
taught and practised the baptism of believers 
only, while it is certain that he held to the 
supreme authority of Scripture and rejected 
the authoritative claims of tradition and the 
church. His followers were known for a time 
as Henricians, but did not retain their dis- 
tinctive name long after his death ; but either 
wholly disappeared, or, as is more likely, were 
absorbed into other bodies professing similar 
beliefs. 

Arnaldo da Brescia was another of the 
pupils of Abelard who became a reformer and 
a heretic. It was not without reason, from its 
own point of view, that the Roman Church 
condemned Abelard ; for whether he were 
himself in strictness a heretic, he was certainly 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 6$ 

the cause of heresy in others. The most seri- 
ous revolts of the twelfth century against the 
church are directly traceable to his lecture 
room. Arnold, after the completion of his 
studies, became a monk, but was unable to 
continue his vocation. The political corrup- 
tions of the church in Italy at this period 
made a deeper impression on him perhaps 
than the religious • and throughout his career 
he was a reformer of political even more than 
of religious institutions. In his view the State 
should be, not the empire, at that time regarded 
as the ideal earthly government, but a pure 
republican democracy. Every city, he taught, 
should constitute an independent State, in 
whose government no bishop ought to have 
the right to interfere ; the church should not 
own any secular dominion and priests should 
be excluded from every temporal authority. 
This teaching differed totally from the then 
prevailing notion of a universal sacerdotium 
and imperium, the one ruling spiritual affairs, 
the other temporal, the civil ruler receiving 
his authority from the spiritual, and in turn 
protecting the latter with his sword and enforc- 
ing its decrees. 

A temporary and delusive success of Ar- 
nold's views in Rome itself was followed by 
defeat, surrender, and martyrdom, his body 

E 



66 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

being burned and the ashes thrown into the 
Tiber. The chief significance of Arnold, as 
regards Baptist history, is that he was the first 
to proclaim with insistence and eloquence the 
doctrine of soul-liberty and the separation be- 
tween Church and State. He is said also to 
have denied infant baptism and the sacrament 
of the altar. 

The twelfth century reformer whose labors 
made the deepest and most lasting impression 
was Peter Waldo. The surname Waldo, more 
properly Valdez (Latin, Valdesius), probably 
indicates the place of his birth — in the Can- 
ton of Vaud perhaps ; and as Peter of the 
Valley he was distinguished from the numer- 
ous other Peters of his day. We first gain 
sight of him about the year 1150, when, al- 
ready past middle life, he was a rich merchant 
of Lyons. He became troubled regarding the 
salvation of his soul, not being able to find 
peace in the round of rites and penances pre- 
scribed by the church. Consulting a learned 
theologian he was informed that there are many 
ways of salvation. ' l Of all the roads that 
lead to heaven, ' ' he asked, ' ' which is the 
surest? I desire to follow the perfect way." 
To this characteristic query his mentor made 
reply in the words of Christ : " If thou wilt be 
perfect, go, sell that thou hast and give to 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 6? 

the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven : and come take up thy cross and fol- 
low me." Had he been a learned theologian 
he would have known at once that these words 
had some mystical or allegorical meaning ; he 
was a plain man and knew no better than to 
obey his Master literally. He therefore re- 
turned to his house, divided his property with 
his wife, who did not share his anxiety, out of 
his moiety provided for his two daughters, and 
distributed the rest in alms to the poor. He 
then betook himself to the study of the Scrip- 
tures, and finding that he could understand 
the Latin but imperfectly, obtained the services 
of two priests to make a version of the Gos- 
pels and Psalms into the common dialect of 
the country. This version he studied, and 
upon it he meditated until it flowed almost 
spontaneously from his lips. What was more 
natural than that he should begin to talk of it 
to others? At this time there were in South- 
ern France many strolling minstrels to whose 
tales in rude verse the people listened greedily. 
Peter Waldo found it easy to persuade the 
people to listen to the story of the cross ; and as 
he told it from city to city and from village to 
village, the number of his proselytes multiplied 
rapidly. 

Such a work could not go on long without 



08 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

attracting the attention and arousing the jeal- 
ousy of the priests. The archbishop of Lyons 
forbade Waldo's preaching, and an appeal to 
the pope brought no relief. It is said that Al- 
exander III. received the preacher kindly, as 
a holy man, and even condescended to kiss his 
cheek, but told him he was not to preach with- 
out the consent of his diocesan. Up to this 
time Waldo had been a faithful son of the 
church ; he had only asked the privilege of 
telling to others what a Saviour he had found. 
Denied this privilege, and feeling himself 
called of God to the work, he was not long in 
deciding to obey God rather than man. Soon 
he was preaching again, and those of his dis- 
ciples who were fitted for the work and be- 
lieved themselves called of God to it, became 
preachers like their master. In no long time 
the whole of Southern France was filled with 
lay preachers of the word, who were known as 
the Poor Men of Lyons, and later as Valde- 
sians, or Waldenses. Waldo himself died in 
or about the year 12 17, but before his death 
he and his adherents were condemned by the 
Council of Verone (1183) and expelled from 
Lyons. Thence they scattered all over conti- 
nental Europe, and increased in numbers mar- 
velously in spite of bitter persecutions. 

This rapid growth of the body cannot be 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 69 

explained wholly by the general preparedness 
of the church for the preaching of a more 
spiritual faith ; or, rather, that state of feeling 
itself requires explanation. In the scattered 
fragments of preceding sects, notably of the 
Petrobrusians, soil was found most favorable 
for the propagation of the teachings of Waldo. 
The Waldenses, in their earlier history, appear 
to be little else than Petrobrusians under a 
different name. For, though there is reason 
to suppose that Waldo himself owed nothing to 
Peter of Bruys, but arrived at the truth inde- 
pendently, he at once became the spiritual 
heir of his predecessor and namesake, and 
carried on the same work. The doctrines of 
the early Waldenses are substantially identical 
with those of the Petrobrusians, the persecu- 
tors of both being witnesses. For example, 
Roman writers before 1350 attribute the fol- 
lowing errors to the Waldenses : 

1. "They assert that the doctrine of Christ 
and the apostles, without the decrees of the 
church, suffices for salvation." "Everything 
preached which is not to be proved by the 
text of the Bible they hold to be fable." One 
writer says that they received only the Gospels, 
but this is doubtless an error, for another ac- 
cuses them of knowing by heart the whole of 
the New Testament and a good part of the Old. 



yO SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

2. "They say that the church singing is in- 
fernal clamor. ' ' This last remark was intended 
against the singing of hymns in Latin, a tongue 
not understood of the people, and is not a 
note of antipathy to singing hymns per se. In 
fact, their first literature took the form of 
hymns. 

3. ' ' They alone were the Church of Christ. ' ' 
1 ' No one is compelled to faith ; no one is holy 
but God." 

4. ' ' They say that a man is then truly for 
the first time baptized when he is brought into 
their heresy. But some say that baptism does 
not profit little children, because they are 
never able actually to believe. " "Concern- 
ing baptism, they say that the catechism is of 
no value. . . Little children do not become 
holy through baptism. . . The washing that 
is given to infants does not profit. " "One 
argument of their error is that they say baptism 
does not profit little children to salvation, who 
have neither the motive nor the act of faith, 
because, as it is said in the latter part of 
Mark, ' He who will not believe will be con- 
demned. ' " 

5. "They do not believe it to be really the 
body and blood of Christ, but only bread 
blessed, which by a certain figure is said to be 
the body of Christ ; as it is said, ' But the 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 7 1 

rock was Christ,' and similar passages. . . 
They observe this in their conventicles, recit- 
ing those words of the Gospel at their table and 
participating together as in the Supper of 
Christ. M ' ' They say that the oblation made 
by priests in the mass is of no value and does 
not profit. " " They condemn altars. " " They 
say that the Holy Scriptures have the same 
effect in the vulgar tongue as in the Latin, 
whence they make [the body of Christ] in the. 
vulgar tongue and give the sacraments, ' ? 

Other less serious heresies are alleged : as 
that the followers of Waldo all preached with- 
out ordination ; that they declared the pope 
to be at the head of all errors ; that confession- 
was to be made to God alone ; that they ab- 
horred the sign of the cross. Also we find 
attributed to them certain tenets that were 
afterward characteristic of the Anabaptists ; 
such as : " In no case, for any necessity or use- 
fulness, must one swear ' ' ; and ' ' For no 
reason should one slay. ' ' 

In the face of all-but-unanimous testimony 
of Roman authorities, it has been denied that 
the early Waldenses rejected infant baptism. 
Stress is laid on the fact that in the earliest of 
their literature that has come down to us the 
Waldensians are Pedobaptists, or at least do 
not oppose infant baptism. It is also an un- 



72 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

questioned fact that the later Waldensians, 
those who found a refuge in the valleys of 
Savoy after the crusade of Simon de Montfort^ 
in Southern France, are found to be Pedo- 
baptists at the earliest authentic period of their 
history. But all this is not necessarily incon- 
sistent with the accounts of the sect as given 
us by contemporary Romanists. Nearly three 
hundred years elapsed between the crusade 
and the Reformation, and during these cen- 
turies the escaped Waldenses dwelt among the 
high valleys of Eastern France and Savoy, iso- 
lated and forgotten. Great ignorance came 
upon them, as is testified by the literature that 
has survived, and in time they so far forgot 
the doctrines of their forefathers that many of 
the writers saw but little difference between 
themselves and the Romanists. Some of the 
old spirit remained, however, so that when in 
j 532 a Pedobaptist creed was adopted at the 
Synod of Augrogne under the guidance of the 
Swiss reformers, Farel and QEcolampadius, a 
large minority refused to be bound by this new 
creed, declaring it to be a reversal of their 
previous beliefs. That they were correct in 
this declaration is the verdict of modern schol- 
ars who have investigated the earlier Walden- 
sian history. 

The balance of evidence is therefore clearly 



THE CHURCH REAPPEARS 73 

in favor of the conclusion that the early follow- 
ers of Waldo taught and practised the baptism 
of believers only. Dr. Keller, the latest and 
most candid investigator of the subject, holds 
this view : "Very many Waldenses considered, 
as we know accurately, the baptism on [pro- 
fession of] faith to be that form which is con- 
formable with the words and example of 
Christ. They held this to be the sign of the 
covenant of a good conscience with God, and 
it was certain to them that it had value only as 
such." This belief would logically exclude 
infant baptism, and accordingly Dr. Keller 
tells us: "Mostly they let their children be 
baptized [by Romish priests?] yet with the 
reservation that this ceremony was null and 
void. ' ' Maintaining these views, they were the 
spiritual ancestors of the Anabaptist churches 
that sprang up all over continental Europe just 
before the Lutheran Reformation. And it is 
a curious and instructive fact that these Ana- 
baptist churches were most numerous precisely 
where the Waldenses of a century or two pre- 
vious had most flourished, and where their 
identity as Waldenses had been lost. That 
there was an intimate relation between the two 
movements, few doubt who have studied this 
period and its literature. The torch of truth 
was handed on from generation to generation, 



74 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and though it often smouldered and was even 
apparently extinguished, it needed but a 
breath to blaze up again and give light to all 
mankind. 




CHAPTER V 

THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 

]HE origin of the Anabaptists of Swit- 
zerland is obscure. The testimony 
of contemporaries is that they de- 
rived their chief doctrines from sects that an- 
tedated the Reformation, and this testimony 
is confirmed by so many collateral proofs as to 
commend itself to many modern historians. 
Vadian, the burgomaster of St. Gall, and 
brother-in-law to Conrad Grebel, says of the 
Anabaptists : "They received the dogma of 
baptizing from the suggestions of others. " 
The industrious Fiisslin reached this opinion : 
"There were before the Reformation people 
in Zurich who, filled with errors, gave birth to 
the Anabaptists. Grebel was taught by them ; 
he did not discover his own doctrines but was 
taught by others. ' ' In our own day impartial 
German investigators have reached similar con- 
clusions. Thus Dr. Heberle writes (in the 
"Jahrbucher far Deutsche Theologie," 1858, 
p. 276, seq.} : 

' ' In carrying out their fundamental ideas 

75 



j6 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the party of Grebel paid less attention to dog- 
matics than to the direction of church, civil, 
and social life. They urged the putting away 
of all modes of worship which were unknown 
to the church of the apostles, and the restora- 
tion of the observance, according to their in- 
stitution, of the two ceremonies ordained by 
Christ. They contended against the Christi- 
anity of worldly governments, rejected the sal- 
aries of preachers, the taking of interest and 
tithes, the use of the sword, and demanded 
the return of apostolic excommunication and 
primitive community of goods. 

"It is well known that just these principles 
are found in the sects of the Middle Ages. 
The supposition is therefore very probable 
that between these and the rebaptizers of the 
Reformation there was an external historical 
connection. The possibility of this as respects 
Switzerland is all the greater, since just here 
the traces of these sects, especially of the 
Waldenses, can be followed down to the end 
of the fifteenth century. But a positive proof 
in this connection we have not. . . In reality, 
the explanation of this agreement needs no 
proof of a real historical union between Ana- 
baptists and their predecessors, for the abstract 
biblical standpoint upon which the one as well 
as the other place themselves is sufficient of it- 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND JJ 

self to prove a union of the two in the above- 
mentioned doctrines. ' ' 

The utmost that can be said in the present 
state of historical research is that a moral cer- 
tainty exists of a connection between the Swiss 
Anabaptists and their Waldensian and Petro- 
brusian predecessors, sustained by many sig- 
nificant facts, but not absolutely proved by his- 
torical evidence. Those who maintain that 
the Anabaptists originated with the Reforma- 
tion have some difficult problems to solve ; 
among others the rapidity with which the new 
leaven spread, and the wide territory that the 
Anabaptists so soon covered. It is common 
to regard them as an insignificant handful of 
fanatics, but abundant documentary proofs ex- 
ist to show that they were numerous, wide- 
spread, and indefatigable ; that their chief men 
were not inferior in learning and eloquence to 
any of the Reformers ; that their teachings 
were scriptural, consistent, and moderate, ex- 
cept where persecution produced the usual re- 
sult of enthusiasm and vagary. Another prob- 
lem demanding solution is furnished by the 
fact that these Anabaptist churches were not 
gradually developed, but appear fully formed 
from the first — complete in polity, sound in 
doctrine, strict in discipline. It will be found 
impossible to account for these phenomena 



78 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

without an assumption of a long existing cause. 
Though the Anabaptist churches appear sud- 
denly in the records of the time, contempora- 
neously with the Zwinglian Reformation, their 
roots are to be sought farther back. 

One paramount reason why the Anabaptists 
do not appear, distinctively as such, in the 
early stages of the Zwinglian movement, is 
found in the fact that Zwingli was at first him- 
self practically an Anabaptist. As he frankly 
confesses, he was for a considerable time in- 
clined to reject infant baptism, in obedience 
to the fundamental principle he had adopted 
of accepting the Scriptures as the only rule of 
faith and practice, and rejecting everything 
that had no clear Scripture warrant. It was 
on this principle that he took his stand in op- 
position to his Catholic opponents in the two 
public disputations held by order of the Zurich 
Council on January 3 and October 15, 1523. 
In each case Zwingli carried the council with 
him and also all who wished reform ; there 
was as yet no sign of division in the ranks of 
the evangelical party. He had but to go on 
consistently as he began to have made the 
Zwinglian Reformation an Anabaptist move- 
ment. But having put his hand to the plow 
he suffered himself to look back. He was in 
bondage to the idea of a State Church, a Ref- 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 79 

ormation that should have back of it the power 
of the civil magistrate, instead of being a 
spiritual movement simply. But to fulfill this 
ideal, infant baptism was a necessity. The mo- 
ment the church was made a spiritual body 
purely, consisting wholly of the regenerate, it 
of necessity separated itself from the world. 
The majority of the Zurich Council were Chris- 
tians in no experimental sense, and could be 
called by that name only because they had 
been baptized in their infancy. To ask such 
men to declare in favor of a separate church 
was to ask them to unchurch themselves ; for 
they were not ready to be baptized on a per- 
sonal profession of faith, they had no faith to 
profess. The idea of the radical reformers 
seemed to Zwingli suicidal, for he could see a 
possibility of success only through the support 
of the civil power. In this conviction is to be 
found, not only his reason for breaking with 
the Anabaptists, but the secret of his other 
mistakes and the cause of his untimely death. 
He gained, it is possible, for his Reformation 
a more immediate and outward success, only to 
establish it on a foundation of sand. 

About the year 1523, therefore, Zwingli 
and the more radical reformers came to the 
parting of the ways. Up to the time of their 
separation on the question of infant baptism 



80 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

those who afterward became Anabaptist lead- 
ers were among the most active and trusted of 
Zwingli' s lieutenants. This was particularly 
true of Conrad Grebel. The son of one of 
the members of the Zurich Council, he was 
socially a man of more importance than Zwin- 
gli, whose father was a peasant farmer. In el- 
oquence he appears to have been little the in- 
ferior of his leader, and he is described by 
Zwingli himself as ' ' most studious, most can- 
did, most learned. ' ' He was born in the last 
decade of the fifteenth century, and was edu- 
cated at the universities of Vienna and Paris. 
At both institutions he attained high rank 
among his fellows, but his life was wild and dis- 
sipated. Some time before 1522 he was con- 
verted, and from this time on his life was one 
of perfect rectitude and piety. Though not a 
profound scholar, he was a learned man for his 
time, and his views regarding the church were 
derived from careful study of the original 
Scriptures, especially of the Greek New Tes- 
tament. 

Another of the Anabaptist leader was Felix 
Mantz, also a native ol Zurich, the natural son 
of a canon, liberally educated, and especially 
versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. He was the 
firm friend and adherent of Zwingli, until the 
latter gave up his early principle of the suprem- 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 8t 

acy of the Scriptures. Mantz could not chop 
about so easily. Faithfully following the prin- 
ciple to its necessary conclusions, he became 
convinced that the baptism of infants is no- 
where authorized in Scripture, but is, on the 
contrary, excluded by the requirement of per- 
sonal faith as a precedent to baptism. 

Other prominent men among the Anabap- 
tists were George Blaurock, a former monk, 
who for his eloquence and zeal was known as 
a second Paul ; Ludwig Hatzer, a native of the 
canton of St. Gall, who had studied at Frei- 
burg and acquired a good knowiedge of He- 
brew, and had the confidence of Zwingli before 
he became an Anabaptist ; and Balthasar 
Hiibmaier, of whose labors a more particular 
account will be given in a subsequent chapter. 

By the beginning of 1525 the break between 
Zwingli and his more radical associates in the 
work of reform had become marked. The 
opposition to infant baptism became so vehe- 
ment that at length the Council appointed an- 
other public disputation, January 17. Grebel 
and Mantz, Hatzer and Blaurock, represented 
the radical party, but the Council decided in 
Zwingli' s favor, and issued an order that pa- 
rents should have their children baptized at 
once on pain of banishment. 

Thus far the records speak of opposition to 



82 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the baptism of infants, but do not refer to 
Anabaptism, or the rebaptizing on profession 
of faith those who had received a so-called 
baptism in infancy. From the summer of 
1525, however, we read constantly of such 
rebaptisms. At first affusion was practised in 
some cases, perhaps in all, in conformity to the 
prevailing usage of the time ; but a little later 
immersion appears to have been substituted, 
in accordance with the principle of conforming 
in all things to Scripture rather than to custom. 
Anabaptism spread with such rapidity that 
the Council became alarmed, and another dis- 
putation was set for November 6. It is not 
probable that the Anabaptists expected a vic- 
tory, knowing that Zwingli was opposed to 
them, and that his influence was all-powerful 
with the Council. The Zwinglians brought 
forward the arguments of which later Pedo- 
baptists have made so free use, that the Abra- 
hamic covenant continued in the New Dispen- 
sation, and that baptism replaced circumcision. 
The Anabaptists, like Baptists of to-day, ar- 
gued that there is no command or example 
for infant baptism in the New Testament, and 
that instruction and belief are enjoined before 
baptism. Incidentally, Zwingli reproached the 
Anabaptists for being separatists ; to which 
they made the unanswerable reply that, if they 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 83 

were such, they had as good a right to sepa- 
rate from him as he had to separate from the 
Pope. 

The Council made an official finding, pub- 
lished under date of November 30, to the 
effect that " each one of the Anabaptists hav- 
ing expressed his views without hindrance, it 
was found, by the sure testimonies of Holy 
Scripture, both of the Old and the New Tes- 
taments, that Zwingli and his followers had 
overcome the Anabaptists, annihilated Ana- 
baptism, and established infant baptism." So 
little confidence had the Council in this anni- 
hilation of Anabaptism, in spite of their swell- 
ing words, that they proceeded to do what 
they could to annihilate it by means of the 
civil power. On this occasion they contented 
themselves with ordering all persons to abstain 
from Anabaptism, and baptize the young chil- 
dren. They added this grim warning : ' ' Who- 
ever shall act contrary to the order, shall, as 
often as he disobeys, be punished by the fine 
of a silver mark ; and if any shall prove dis- 
obedient, we shall deal with him further and 
punish him according to his deserts without 
further forgiveness." 

That this was no light and unmeaning 
threat the Anabaptists had immediate reason 
to know. Grebel, Mantz, Blaurock, and 



84 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

others prominent in the movement, were 
summoned before the Council and com- 
manded to retract their errors ; on refusal 
they were thrown into prison, loaded with 
chains, and kept there several months. Hiib- 
maier, who had been compelled to seek a 
refuge in the canton, was thrown into prison 
also ; and there, weakened by imprisonment 
and sickness, he yielded for the moment and 
consented to make a public recantation. When 
brought into the pulpit, however, his spirit 
reasserted itself, and instead of pronouncing 
his recantation he made an address declaring 
his opposition to infant baptism and defending 
rebaptism. His amazed and disappointed 
hearers unceremoniously hustled him back to 
his prison, and by prolonged imprisonment 
and (it is said) repeated tortures at length ex- 
tracted from him a written recantation. This 
was only a weakness of the flesh, that is no 
more honorable to Zwingli and his followers 
than to Hiibmaier. On his release, he re- 
sumed his Anabaptism and remained faithful 
to his convictions until his death. 

It would be a painful and useless task to 
detail the cruelties that followed. No persecu- 
tion was ever more gratuitous and unfounded. 
Some of its later apologists have alleged that it 
was more political than religious, that it was a 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 85 

necessary measure to protect the State from 
seditious persons. It is sufficient to reply that 
contemporary records make no charge of sedi- 
tion against the iVnabaptists. They were con- 
demned for Anabaptism, and for nothing else ; 
the record stands in black and white for all 
men to read. The Zwinglians found that hav- 
ing once undertaken to suppress what they 
declared to be heresy by physical force, more 
stringent remedies than fines and imprison- 
ments were needed. In short, if persecution 
is to be efficient and not ridiculous, there is 
no halting-place this side of the sword and the 
stake. The Zwinglians did not lack courage 
to make their repressive measures effectual. 
On March 7, 1526, it was decreed by the 
Zurich Council that whosoever rebaptized 
should be drowned, and this action was con- 
firmed by a second decree of November 19. 
Felix Mantz, who had been released for a time 
and had renewed his labors at Schaffhausen 
and Basel, was rearrested on December 3, 
found guilty of the heinous crime of Anabap- 
tism, and on January 5 was sentenced to death 
by drowning. 

This barbarous sentence was duly carried 
out. On the way to the place of execution, 
says Bullinger, a bitterly hostile historian, "his 
mother and brother came to him, and exhorted 



86 SHORT HISTORY OR THE BAPTISTS 

him to he steadfast ; and he persevered in his 
folly, even to the end. When he was bound 
upon the hurdle and was about to be thrown 
into the stream by the executioner, he sang 
with a loud voice, In manus tuas, D online, 
commendo spiritum meuni (into thy hands, O 
Lord, I commend my spirit) ; and herewith 
was drawn into the water and drowned. ' ' 

No wonder Capito wrote to Zwingli from 
Strasburg : "It is reported here that your 
Felix Mantz has suffered punishment and died 
gloriously ; on which account the cause of 
truth and piety, which you sustain, is greatly 
depressed." If anything could depress the 
Zwinglian movement, one would think it would 
be this brutal treatment of those whose only 
fault was that they had been consistent where 
Zwingli himself had been inconsistent, in keep- 
ing close to New Testament teaching and prec- 
edent. About two years later Jacob Faulk 
and Henry Rieman, having firmly refused to 
retract, but rather having expressed their de- 
termination to preach the gospel and rebaptize 
converts if released, were sentenced to death, 
taken to a little fishing hut in the middle of 
the river Limat, where, says Bullinger, "they 
were drawn into the water and drowned. ' ' 

For these persecutions Zwingli stands con- 
demned before the bar of history. As the 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 87 

burning of Servetus has left an eternal stain on 
the good name of Calvin, in spite of all at- 
tempts to explain away his responsibility for 
the dark deed, so the drowning of Mantz is a 
damning blot on Zwingli' s career as a reformer. 
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten 
the hand that has been stained with the blood 
of one of Christ' s martyrs. If Zwingli did not 
take an active part in the condemnation of 
Mantz, if he did not fully approve the savage 
measures of the Council, he did approve of the 
suppression of Anabaptism by the civil power. 
There is no record of protest of his, by voice 
or pen, against the barbarous cruelties inflicted 
in the name of pure religion on so many of 
God's people, though his influence would 
have been all-powerful in restraining the 
Council from passing their persecuting edicts. 
He cannot be acquitted, therefore, of moral 
complicity in this judicial murder. Though 
not personally a persecutor, he stood by, like 
Saul at • the stoning of Stephen, approving by 
silence all that was done. 

Grebel was spared the fate of Mantz by an 
untimely death. His fiery spirit made him a 
natural leader of men, and at Schaffhausen, at 
St. Gall, at Hinwyl, and at many other places, 
he preached the gospel with great power 
and gathered large numbers of converts into 



88 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

churches. His labors continued little more 
than three years, and his name appears in the 
Zurich records for the last time early in March, 
1526. All that we know of him further is that 
he died, probably soon after, of the pest. 
Had he lived a few years longer, his fitness 
for leadership would have given him a large 
following among his countrymen, the character 
of the Swiss Reformation might have been 
radically changed, and the history of Switzer- 
land turned into a new channel for all time. 
Hubmaier was banished, to meet his martyr- 
dom elsewhere. Blaurock was burned at the 
stake at Claussen, in the Tyrol, in 1529. 

Hatzer, driven out of Zurich, went to Stras- 
burg for a time, but being banished, thence 
made his way to Constance, where he was 
apprehended, imprisoned for four months, and 
then put to death. The formal charge against 
him was bigamy. He is said in some accounts 
to have had twenty-four wives, according to 
others he had nineteen, while some content 
themselves with saying vaguely ' ' a great 
many. " In the trial record at Constance he 
is said to have confessed that he married his 
wife's maid while his wife still lived. There 
is not a line of confirmatory evidence in 
the correspondence between Zwingli and his 
friends at Constance, nor in a contemporary 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 89 

account of Hatzer's last moments by an eye- 
witness. His death was after a godly manner, 
and the account says : "A nobler and more 
manful death was never seen in Constance. 
He suffered with greater propriety than I had 
given him credit for. They who knew not 
that he was a heretic and an Anabaptist could 
have observed nothing in him. . . May the 
Almighty, the Eternal God, grant to me and 
to the servants of his word like mercy in the 
day when he shall call us home. ' ' This is not 
the way in which adulterers and vulgar scoun- 
drels die. Dr. Keller pronounces the charge 
against Hatzer an unproved and unprovable 
statement. Resting as it does on an alleged 
confession that is wholly unconfirmed, the offi- 
cial charge is to be regarded as a calumny in- 
vented to conceal the fact that there was no 
fault found in him save that he was born an 
Anabaptist. 

Thus one by one the leaders were killed or 
driven away or died by natural causes. By 
this means the persecutors at length attained 
their end. Though their trials at first in- 
creased the number of Anabaptists, they were 
for the most part plain, unlettered folk, rich in 
nothing else than faith, and little able to hold 
out unaided and unled against a persecution 
so bitter and determined. Gradually the Ana- 



90 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISES 

baptists disappear from the annals of Switzer- 
land, but not without having left the impress 
of their character on the nation, and on the 
Zwinglian Reformation. 

The teachings of the Swiss Anabaptists are 
accurately known to us from three independent 
and mutually confirmatory sources : The testi- 
mony of their opponents, the fragments of 
their writings that remain, and their Confession 
of Faith. The latter is the first document of 
its kind known to be in existence. It was 
issued in 1527 by the "brotherly union of 
certain believing, baptized children of God," 
assembled at Schleitheim, a little village near 
Schafifhausen. The author is conjectured to 
have been Michael Sattler, of whom we know 
little more than that he was an ex-monk, of 
highly esteemed character, who suffered mar- 
tyrdom at Rothenberg in the same year this 
confession was issued, his tongue being torn 
out, his body lacerated with red-hot tongs and 
then burned. 

The confession is not a complete system of 
doctrine, but treats the following topics : bap- 
tism, excommunication, breaking of bread, 
separation from abominations, shepherds in 
the congregation, sword (civil government), 
oaths. It teaches the baptism of believers 
only, the breaking of bread by those alone who 



THE ANABAPTISTS OF SWITZERLAND 9 1 

have been baptized, and inculcates a pure 
church discipline. It forbids a Christian to be 
a magistrate, but does not absolve him from 
obedience to the civil law • it pronounces 
oaths sinful. With the exception of the last 
two points — in which the modern Friends 
have followed the Anabaptists in interpreting 
the Scriptures — the Schleitheim Confession 
corresponds exactly with the beliefs avowed by 
Baptist churches to-day. It is significant that 
what is opprobriously called ' ' close ' ' com- 
munion is found to be the teaching of the 
oldest Baptist document in existence. 

With this Confession agrees the testimony 
of Zwingli and other bitter opponents of the 
Anabaptists. The only fault charged against 
them by their "contemporaries that is sup- 
ported by evidence, is that they had the cour- 
age and honesty to interpret the Scriptures as 
Baptists to-day interpret them. Among the 
fragments of their own wri tings that survive are 
hymns that breathe an exalted spiritual life, a 
devout and simple faith in the teachings of 
Christ. Of their genuine piety there is as 
little doubt as there is of the cruelty with 
which that piety was punished as a crime 
against God and man. 




CHAPTER VI 

THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS 

j]HE name Anabaptist stands in the 
literature of the Lutheran Reforma- 
tion as a synonym for the extremest 
errors of doctrine, and the wildest excesses of 
conduct. The Anabaptists were denounced by 
their contemporaries, Romanist and Protestant 
alike, with a rhetoric so sulphurous that an 
evil odor has clung to the name ever since. 
If one were to believe the half that he reads 
about these heretics, he would be compelled 
to think them the most depraved of mankind. 
Nothing was too vile to be ascribed to them, 
nothing was too wicked to be believed about 
them — nothing, in fact, was incredible, except 
one had described them as God-fearing, pious 
folk, studious of the Scriptures, and obedient 
to the will of their Lord, as that will was made 
known. The masses of the Anabaptists, as of 
the Lutherans, were uncultured people ; but 
among their leaders were men unsurpassed in 
their times for knowledge of the original Scrip- 
tures, breadth of mind, and fervidness of 
92 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS 93 

eloquence. Historians of their own land and 
race are beginning to do these men tardy jus- 
tice • and the day is not far distant when his- 
torical scholarship will prepare a complete vin- 
dication of the men so maligned. In the 
meantime, enough is already known to set 
right many erroneous statements that have 
been handed down from historian to historian 
for three centuries, and accepted as undoubt- 
edly true without re-investigation. 

As in Switzerland, so in Germany, hardly 
had the Reformation begun when we find 
mention of Anabaptists. But there is this 
difference : while the name in Switzerland de- 
noted a party essentially homogeneous in faith 
and practice, the name Anabaptist is applied 
in Germany to men of widely divergent views 
and acts. It was, in fact, like ' l anarchist ' ' or 
"socialist" to-day, a convenient epithet of 
opprobrium, bestowed by the dominant party 
on any who opposed them. Many who are 
called by this title in Reformation literature 
were never Anabaptists, but practised pedo- 
baptism as consistently as any Lutheran or Ro- 
manist of them all. Others, who were so far 
Anabaptists as to have rejected infant baptism, 
had not grasped the principle on which rejec- 
tion of infant baptism properly rests, the 
spiritual constitution of the church. Even 



94 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

when the term is properly applied to those 
who for any cause re-baptized those who had 
received a previous (nominal) baptism, it does 
not necessarily denote evangelical belief. 

Three principal parties of Anabaptists (to 
follow Dr. Keller's classification) came upon 
the stage, one after the other, in three epochs, 
under different leaders. In the period which 
lies between the years 1525 and 1530, such 
men as Balthazar Hubmaier and John Denck 
were the leading spirits. From 1530 to 1535, 
Melchior Hofmann and John of Leyden be- 
came masters of the situation in large measure. 
After the downfall of Mlinster, Menno Simons 
obtained a controlling influence. These three 
epochs or stages in the Anabaptist movement 
are worthy of examination in detail. The first 
forms the subject of the present chapter ; the 
others will be discussed in the two following 
chapters. 

It is commonly said that the first appear- 
ance of Anabaptism in Germany was in 152 1, 
at Zwickau, on the border of Bohemia. The 
so-called Zwickau prophets, who at this time at- 
tracted much attention, were Nicholas Storch, 
a weaver, but a man of marked ability and well 
versed in the Scriptures ; Marcus Stiibner, who 
had been a student at Wittenberg ; and Marcus 
Thoma, evidently a man of some learning, since 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS 95 

a letter written in Latin is still extant in which 
he is addressed as a "learned man" (erudito 
viro). These men were not Anabaptists, since 
they anticipated the Friends in rejecting water 
baptism as unnecessary to those who had the 
baptism of the Spirit. 

Closely associated with these ' ' prophets ' ' 
at Zwickau was Thomas Miinzer, who is also 
erroneously called an Anabaptist. He was born 
about 1490 at Stolberg, studied at several uni- 
versities, and was a man of considerable learn- 
ing, unusual ability, and remarkable eloquence. 
With all these gifts he showed himself from the 
beginning of his career to be one of those hot- 
headed, unbalanced, fanatical men, who are 
born to be troublers in Israel. In June, 1520, 
he became preacher of the chief church at 
Zwickau, the city already leaning toward Lu- 
theranism ; and it is more than suspected that 
he received the appointment with Luther's 
knowledge and sanction. In his first sermon 
he attacked the pope and clergy so furiously as 
to make a great sensation in the town, and 
soon great crowds of people flocked in from 
the surrounding region to hear this preacher, 
who, according to an enemy's testimony, was 
"gifted with angelic eloquence." 

Finding the Council and more sober citizens 
opposed to his radicalism, Miinzer thought to 



96 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

strengthen his position by attaching his for- 
tunes to those of the "prophets," and together 
they began to announce the speedy end of the 
age and the setting up of the kingdom of 
Christ. These prophecies soon produced such 
disorders in Zwickau that the Council was 
compelled to act. The "prophets" were 
thrown into prison for a time, and Miinzer 
was banished, going into Bohemia. 

After their release, the "prophets" made 
their way to Wittenberg. Luther was at this 
time in his ■ ' captivity ' ' at the Wartburg, and 
Carlstadt and Melancthon were the leading 
men in the university town. Both were much 
impressed by the "prophets," received them 
kindly, and gave not a little credence to their 
teaching. A letter of Melancthon' s written at 
this time shows how near he came to acknowl- 
edging the genuineness of the men's inspira- 
tion. But Luther, who had been following the 
course of events with much uneasiness, sud- 
denly returned from the Wartburg, preached a 
series of violent sermons, held stormy inter- 
views with the ' ' prophets, ' ' and finally drove 
them out of the town. Soon after they disap- 
pear from history. 

Miinzer, unfortunately, did not disappear. 
About 1523 he in some way became pastor at 
Alstedt, where he married a former nun. Here 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS 97 

he was as conservative as previously he had 
been radical. He published a liturgy in Ger- 
man which is decidedly more Roman than 
Lutheran in doctrine, and contains a form of 
baptism for infants. In one of his tracts pub- 
lished later he says that infant baptism cannot 
be proved from Scripture, which is probably 
the reason why he has been called an Anabap- 
tist, but he never abandoned the practice of 
baptizing infants. 

By the summer of 1524 he had made the 
town too hot to hold him, and for some time 
he wandered from place, visiting CEcolampa- 
dius at Basel, possibly Hiibmaier at Waldshut, 
and making the acquaintance of the Swiss 
Anabaptists. At the beginning of 1525 he 
came to Miihlhausen. Before this time, in 
September, 1524, learning what his views had 
come to be, and what was likely to be their 
outcome, Grebel, Mantz, and Blaurock ad- 
dressed a letter of warning and remonstrance 
to Miinzer which did not reach him, but still 
exists in the archives at Schaffhausen to testify 
to the sound views of its authors. "Is it 
true/' Grebel asks, "as we hear, that you 
preached in favor of an attack on the princes? 
If you defend war or anything else not found 
in the clear word of God, I admonish you by 
our common salvation to abstain from these 

G 



98 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

things now and hereafter. ' ' It is impossible 
to say what effect this fraternal reproof might 
have had ; but not receiving it, Miinzer went 
on his way, and by his rash attempt to mingle 
civil and religious reform, and enforce both by 
the sword, he forfeited his life. 

For when he reached Muhlhausen it was the 
storm-center of Germany; the outbreak of the 
peasants had already begun and the Peasants' 
War was on. The peasants had a righteous 
cause, if ever men had one who strove for 
liberty with the sword, and the justice and 
moderation of their demands as made in their 
twelve articles is conceded by every modern 
historian. Miinzer gave himself out as the 
prophet of God, come for the purpose of set- 
ting up the kingdom of heaven in the city, 
and promising destruction of princes, commu- 
nity of goods, and the gospel to be made the 
rule of life in all things. 

By such means he easily made himself the 
head of the revolt, and thousands of the de- 
luded peasants of Southern Germany flocked 
to his standard. The bubble was pricked by 
the lances of the allied German princes at the 
battle of Frankenhausen, May 15, 1525. 
The peasants were defeated with great slaugh- 
ter ; Miinzer and other leaders were captured 
and put to death ; and it is credibly recorded 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS 99 

of the "prophet" that before his death he re- 
canted his errors, returned to the Catholic 
Church, received the last sacraments, and died 
piously exhorting the people of Miihlhausen to 
hold fast to the true (Catholic) faith ! 

The peasants in their revolts had committed 
outrages : castles had been burned and plun- 
dered and ruthless oppressors had been slain. 
These deeds were now made the pretext for a 
retaliation whose cruelty has rarely been sur- 
passed in history. It is computed by histori- 
ans who have no motive to exaggerate, that 
fully a hundred thousand were killed before 
the fury of the princes and the knights was ap- 
peased. Luther urged them on : "Stab, 
strike, strangle, whoever can." But no ven- 
geance fell upon the Anabaptists as such ; if 
any individuals among them had been so far 
carried away as to join the revolt they were 
doubtless treated like the rest, but no contem- 
porary charges the Anabaptists with responsi- 
bility for the disorders at Miihlhausen or else- 
where during the revolt of the peasants. That 
charge it was left for certain Pedobaptist 
writers of the present century to make for the 
first time. 

We have been carried a little aside from our 
purpose by following the career of one who 
was never an Anabaptist, though nine books 



IOO SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of reference out of ten call him one. Who 
then were the real Anabaptists of Southern 
Germany during this period, and who were 
their leaders ?, It is difficult, if not impossible, 
in the present state of research, to set defi- 
nite bounds for the beginning of Anabaptist 
churches in Germany. Dr. Ludwig Keller, 
State archivist at Minister, the latest, the most 
thorough, and least prejudiced, of German in- 
vestigators of this period, holds that their ori- 
gin lies far back of this time. He traces a 
connection between the Anabaptists and the 
mediaeval endeavors at reform, a connection 
not merely unconscious, but historico-genetic 
and personal. The descendants of the me- 
diaeval ' ( heretics ' ' found nurseries and places 
of refuge in the obscure parts of Europe, and 
even in the towns among the guilds. Anabap- 
tism is, in Keller's view, the real reformation 
movement, from which both Luther and Zwin- 
gli turned aside for political reasons. This is 
a view to which many circumstances lend 
strong confirmation. 

The Anabaptists of South Germany, when- 
ever they first became established there, owed 
no small part of their rapid growth to the labors 
and teachings of Balthasar Hubmaier. This 
apostle of Anabaptism was born in the latter 
part of the fifteenth century at Friedburg. 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS IOI 

Little is known of his family or early life save 
that he was sent in boyhood to the Latin school 
at Augsburg, where his brightness secured him 
acceptance as a candidate for the priesthood. 
About the year 1 510 he entered the university 
of Freiburg, winning the praise of John Eck 
(then a tutor) for his preparatory acquisitions. 
He had a brave struggle with poverty, but 
completed his studies, and in 15 11 we find 
him one of the theological faculty. The fol- 
lowing year he was made professor of theology 
at the University of Ingoldstadt, and also was 
pastor of the University church, in 1 5 1 5 being 
made vice -rector of the University. Called 
by Eck the most eloquent man in Europe, 
and equally esteemed for his learning and his 
piety, he was invited in 15 16 to be the pas- 
tor at the Cathedral at Regensburg (Ratisbon), 
where for six years his success as a preacher 
was so great that he might well have considered 
the highest places in Bavaria open to him. 

Just when the Reformation principles gained 
a hold upon his mind we do not know. His 
resignation of his position at Regensburg seems 
like a determination to cast in his lot with the 
reformers ; yet when in 1520 he became pas- 
tor at Waldshut, — a town in Austria on the very 
borders of Switzerland, — he was by no means 
evangelical in doctrine or practice. In the 



102 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

spring of 1523 he visited Zurich and made or 
continued an acquaintance with Zwingli. He 
was there during the second public disputation 
of that year, and took quite a prominent part 
in it. On his return to Waldshut it became 
evident that he had decided to join the party 
of reform, and he began at once to introduce 
changes. 

There was opposition, of course, but he was 
sustained by the people, as was shown by his 
almost unanimous re-election to the pastorate, 
when he resigned it. Hiibmaier could not long 
remain satisfied with the half-way reforms of 
Luther and Zwingli ; he had in reality done 
what they only professed to do — taken the 
New Testament as his sole rule of faith and 
practice. He found that loyalty to the Scrip- 
tures compelled him to reject infant baptism. 
For a time he tried to compromise with his 
conscience by advising his people against the 
baptism of their children, yet performing the 
ceremony when the parents insisted on it ; but 
ere long he became an uncompromising Ana- 
baptist. At Easter, 1525, William Reublin, an 
Anabaptist preacher from Switzerland, visited 
Waldshut, and baptized Hiibmaier and one 
hundred and ten others on profession of faith. 
Shortly after that Hiibmaier himself baptized 
three hundred more. 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS 103 

In the summer of 1524 the emperor de- 
manded the surrender of Hiibmaier, but his 
townsmen refused the demand. That they 
might not be punished for defending him, he 
voluntarily withdrew and sought an asylum at 
ScharThausen. A few months before this he 
had been in friendly correspondence with 
Zwingli, and the latter was then inclined to 
agree with him about the unscripturalness of 
infant baptism. The times had changed, how- 
ever, and Zwingli had changed with them. His 
former friend he now treated as an enemy. A 
few months later we find Hiibmaier again at 
Waldshut, whence he vehemently protested 
against the persecuting edicts of the Zwin- 
glians, though up to this time he had not 
himself been baptized. The approach of the 
Austrian army compelled him to flee a second 
time in December, 1525, and he sought refuge 
in Zurich. How he was treated by Zwingli, 
his former friend, — a man certainly not his su- 
perior in learning, piety, or eloquence, — has 
been told in a previous chapter. 

On his release from his Swiss prison, he 
made his way to Moravia, and at Nicholsburg 
began a new and great work. Many Swiss 
Anabaptists had sought refuge in Moravia, as 
YValdenses had done earlier, and the way was 
prepared before him for the spread of the 



104 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

truth. His ministry was abundantly successful, 
his preaching attracting great crowds, but it 
was brief. Toward the end of 1527, he was 
seized by order of the emperor and conveyed 
to Vienna. There he was kept in prison three 
months, during which Roman theologians like 
his former schoolmate Faber did their utmost 
to induce him to retract. On March 10, 1528, 
he was taken through the streets of the city in 
a wagon, red-hot pincers being thrust into his 
flesh on the way to the scaffold, where his head 
fell under the headsman's axe and his body 
was burned. So died one of the purest spirits 
of the Reformation, a man against whose 
character no contemporary brought a charge, 
whose piety was equal to his learning, and who 
in eloquence was surpassed by no man of his 
time. Of his writings many remain to witness 
the character of his teaching, the scripturalness 
of his views. 

Hiibmaier was no mystic. He believed in 
no inner light other than the illumination of 
the Spirit of God that is given to every believer 
who walks close with God. His appeal on all 
disputed points is not to this internal witness 
of the Spirit, for which other voices might be 
mistaken, but to the written word of God 
which cannot err. To the law and the testi- 
mony he referred every doubtful question, and 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS 105 

by the decision thus reached, he loyally abided. 
Another leader of his time, John Denck, was 
a man of different mental caste. Educated at 
Basel, whence he was graduated an excellent 
classical and Hebrew scholar, he became a 
proof-reader and teacher. By January, 1525, 
he had become heretical enough to be banished 
from Nuremburg and forbidden to return on 
pain of death. Going to Augsburg, he resumed 
his profession, and not long after was baptized 
by Hubmaier. He was saved from martyrdom 
by dying at Basel in 1527, while yet a young 
man. 

His contemporaries unite in praising the 
brilliant talents and exemplary life of him whom 
one of them calls ' * the Anabaptist pope. M ' ' In 
Denck, that distinguished young man," says 
Vadian, ' ' were all talents so extraordinarily 
developed that he surpassed his years, and 
appeared greater than himself. ' ' His work as 
translator and author was of high quality. His 
translation of the Hebrew prophets, made in 
connection with Hatzer, preceded Luther's by 
several years, and was freely drawn upon by the 
latter, which is one testimony among many to 
its merit. Denck was, however, a mystic : a 
believer in the inner light ; and this belief not 
only led him into some doctrinal vagaries, but 
had a very mischievous effect upon his followers. 



106 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The charge that he did not believe in the di- 
vinity of Christ, Dr. Keller thinks is unproved ; 
but it is admitted that he believed in the final 
restoration of mankind. He obtained a large 
following in Southern Germany, where the 
influence of his work was felt for many years 
after his untimely death. 

Two views prevailed among the Anabaptists 
of this period regarding civil government. 
One is that of the Schleitheim Confession, 
which defines the sword as "an ordinance of 
God outside of the perfection of Christ . . . 
ordained over the wicked for punishment and 
death," and forbids Christians to serve as 
magistrates. A very considerable part of the 
Anabaptists advocated those principles of non- 
resistance that have been professed by the 
Friends of later date. Hiibmaier and Denck 
differed from this view in part. They held 
that the Scriptures direct men to perform their 
duties as citizens ; that Christians may lawfully 
bear the sword as magistrates, and execute the 
laws, save in persecution of others. In his 
tract on the " Christian Baptism of Believers," 
Hiibmaier says : ' ' We confess openly that 
there should be secular government that should 
bear the sword. This we are willing and 
bound to obey in everything that is not against 
God." In his treatise on the sword he de- 



THE GERMAN ANABAPTISTS IO7 

fines and distinguishes civil and religious pow- 
ers, pointing out the true relations of Church 
and State with a clearness that a modern Bap- 
tist might well imitate, but could not excel. 
' ' In matters of faith, ' ' said Denck, ' ' every- 
thing must be left free, willing, and unforced. ' ' 
Hiibmaier denounced persecution in his -'Her- 
etics and Those Who Burn Them," written 
at Schaffhausen before he had by his rebap- 
tism fully ranged himself with the Anabaptists : 
' ' Those who are heretics one should overcome 
with holy knowledge, not angrily but softly. 
... If they will not be taught by strong 
proofs, or evangelical reasons, let them be 
mad, that those that are filthy may be more 
filthy still . . . This is the will of Christ, who 
said, ' Let both grow together till the harvest, 
lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up 
also the wheat with them ! ' . . . Hence it 
follows that the inquisitors are the greatest 
heretics of all, since they against the doctrine 
and example of Christ condemn heretics to 
fire, and before the time of harvest root up 
the wheat with the tares . . . And now it is 
clear to every one, even the blind, that a law 
to burn heretics is an invention of the devil. 
Truth is immortal. ' ' 

These sentences represent the course of 
thought in this tract, which is written with a 



108 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

fire that may well have stirred to wrath the 
persecutors whom it arraigned. The Anabap- 
tists of this period were the only men of their 
time who had grasped the principle of civil and 
religious liberty. That men ought not to be 
persecuted on account of their religious beliefs 
was a necessary corollary from their idea of the 
nature of the church. A spiritual body, con- 
sisting only of the regenerate, could not seek 
to add to itself by force those who were unre- 
generate. No Anababaptist could become a 
persecutor without first surrendering this fun- 
damental conviction ; and though a few of 
them appear to have done this, they ceased to 
be properly classed as Anabaptists the moment 
they forgot the saying of Christ, "My kingdom 
is not of this world. ' ' 



CHAPTER VII 

THE FANATICAL ANABAPTISTS 




T was in Northern Germany that the 
anarchistic and doctrinal vagaries of 
certain few Anabaptists found their 
fullest development. He who has been called 
the leading spirit of the movement that culmi- 
nated at Minister, never countenanced or 
taught the use of the sword in the cause of 
religion. Melchior Hofmann was a man of 
fervent piety, of evangelical spirit, of pure and 
devoted life • but his mind was of the dreamy, 
mystical type, and his lack of thorough knowl- 
edge of the Scriptures in the original tongues 
and his deficiency in general mental culture 
made him an easy victim to speculations and 
vagaries. Pure in life and mild in character as 
he was, not a few of his teachings contained 
dangerous germs of evil, and their develop- 
ment under his successors brought great shame 
upon the Anabaptist cause. 

Hofmann was born in Swabia, probably in 
the free imperial city of Hall, .about 1490. 
He had only a slight education, and was ap- 

109 



IIO SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

prenticed to a furrier. He very early em- 
braced the Lutheran reformation, but was by 
nature a radical and an enthusiast, and could 
be expected to remain permanently subject to 
no leader who halted half way in the work of 
reform. A disparaging reference to him in 
one of Zwingli's letters, written in 1523, shows 
that he was then in Zurich, and later he went 
to Livonia, where he was in no long time 
thrown into prison and then banished. He 
was in Dorpat in the autumn of 1624, and suc- 
ceeded in obtaining testimonials from a num- 
ber of scholars and influential men, including 
Luther himself. It was about this time that 
he began to develop his chiliastic notions, and 
as a lay preacher he did not fail to advocate 
them. This would bring him into no collision 
with the Lutherans, for Luther was himself 
inclined to chiliastic notions, at least during 
this portion of his career. About the begin- 
ning of 1526 Hofmann went to Stockholm, 
where he published his first book, an interpre- 
tation of the twelfth chapter of Daniel, in 
which he gave free vent to his notions about 
the coming of Christ's kingdom. 

For the next two years he was in Denmark ; 
being still attached to the Lutheran party, he 
had little difficulty in obtaining the protection 
of the authorities, and even got a living as- 



THE FANATICAL ANABAPTISTS I I I 

signed him. His restlessness in speculation 
soon made trouble for him with the Lutheran 
clergy, and finally his avowal of Zwinglian ideas 
regarding the eucharist procured his banish- 
ment. Thence he seems to have gone to 
Strassburg, arriving there at the beginning of 
1529, or possibly a little before. 

Up to this time there is no evidence that he 
had met any Anabaptists or become acquainted 
with their views, still less that he had any in- 
clination toward them. At Strassburg the 
Anabaptists were numerous, and the death of 
Denck had left them without a recognized 
leader. They differed from many German 
Anabaptists in several points. They practised 
immersion, while Hiibmaier and the South 
German Anabaptists generally seem to have 
affused, and they were opposed to the use of 
the sword, in spite of the authority of Hiib- 
maier and Denck. The ardor of Hofmann 
and the novelty of his teachings naturally 
fitted him to step into the vacant leadership, 
and in a very short time he was recognised as 
the head of the Anabaptists of Strassburg. He 
wrote and taught indefatigably, and made 
numerous missionary journeys into surround- 
ing regions. One of these, into Holland, was 
fraught with momentous consequences, for in 
the course of it he met, converted, bap- 



I 1 2 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tized, and indoctrinated with his notions, Jan 
Matthys, a baker of Haarlem, who was to be 
his successor, and lead the Anabaptists into a 
career of shame and overthrow. 

After a time the magistrates of the city be- 
came alarmed at Hofmann' s growing influence, 
and he was arrested in May, 1533, and thrown 
into prison. He had before this predicted 
that the end of the age was at hand ; that 
Strassburg was to be the New Jerusalem, and 
that the magistrates would there set up the 
kingdom of God ; that the new truth and the 
new baptism would prevail irresistibly through- 
out the earth. He had set the very year of 
his arrest as the time of consummation • and 
at first his followers were not dismayed, for 
this persecution, they persuaded themselves, 
was also foretold. But the years passed and 
Hofmann still languished in prison, until death 
released him toward the close of 1543. 

In the meantime another ' ' prophet ' ' had 
arisen and his predictions were claiming the 
attention of the credulous. Hofmann was 
discredited by the failure of his prophecies, 
but none the less eagerly were those of Jan 
Matthys received. He was one of these crack- 
brained fanatics, half lunatic, half criminal, 
who never fail to gain a large following, and 
as certainly lead their dupes to destruction. 



THE FANATICAL ANABAPTISTS 1 1 3 

About the time of Hofmann's imprisonment 
Matthys began to dream dreams and see 
visions, proclaimed himself to be the Elias of 
the new dispensation soon to begin, and sent 
out twelve apostles to herald the coming of the 
kingdom of Christ. Among other things he 
predicted the speedy overthrow of all tyrants 
and the coining of an age of gold. Converts 
were made to this new gospel by the thousand 
in Holland and Friesland. 

Events just then occurring at the city of 
Mlinster attracted the attention of the Ana- 
baptist leaders and caused that city to become 
the center of operation's. Minister was at 
that time a semi-free city, ruled by its council, 
but situated in the territory of a prince-bishop 
who claimed a certain suzerainty. The citizens 
had been struggling to gain freedom from an 
ecclesiastical caste that insulted and robbed 
them, and a famine that occurred in this re- 
gion in 1529 brought the city to the very verge 
of revolution. 

At this juncture Bernard Rothmann began 
to preach the Lutheran doctrines there, and 
soon all the clergy of the city sided with him. 
A revolution, half political, half religious, en- 
sued, and by the intervention of Philip of 
Hesse a treaty was made with the prince- 
bishop, in which Miinster was recognized as a 

H 



114 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Lutheran city. But Rothmann and his col- 
leagues had no notion of stopping here ; they 
issued a ' ' Confession of Two Sacraments, ' ' in 
which they strongly advocated believers' bap- 
tism, and defined the ordinance as "dipping 
or completely plunging into the water. ' ' 

Just as affairs had* reached this stage two of 
the apostles of Matthys reached the city and 
began preaching and baptizing. In eight days 
they are said to have baptized fourteen hun- 
dred people. Two weeks later Jan Matthys 
himself arrived, and in February the Anabap- 
tists had so increased that they had no diffi- 
culty in electing a Council from their own 
number, and so gained control of the govern- 
ment of Mlinster without striking a blow. 
From this time they had supreme power in 
the town, though the prince -bishop speedily 
laid siege to it and confined them closely 
within. 

The Anabaptist domination was celebrated 
by clearing the Dom of all images and driving 
from the city all who would not join them. 
The Council then established community of 
goods as the law of the town, and the orgy of 
fanaticism and wickedness began. Daily vis- 
ions and revelations came to the leaders, some 
of whom were evidently sincere, while others 
appear to have been simply devilish. Matthys 



THE FANATICAL ANABAPTISTS I I 5 

was certainly one of the former, and proved 
it by his death. In obedience to a vision he 
made a sortie from the city with a few follow- 
ers, and was killed while fighting desperately. 
John Bockhold, of Leyden, thereupon declared 
himself the successor, and had no difficulty in 
persuading the people to accept him as the 
prophet appointed by God. Nothing seemed 
too much for these credulous Mlinsterites to re- 
ceive unquestioningly. When John of Leyden 
shortly afterward proclaimed that this was 
Mount Zion, that the kingdom of David was 
to be re-established, and that he was King 
David, nobody questioned him. The solemn 
farce was played out to the end. Of course 
King David had to have a harem, and polyg- 
amy was proclaimed as the law of the new 
kingdom. Perhaps the fact that six times as 
many women as men were now in the city had 
a not very remote connection with this feature 
of the kingdom. 

The farce was about ended ; it was soon to 
become bloody tragedy. The Mlinsterites, 
knowing that before the siege began the sur- 
rounding country held thousands who sympa- 
thized with them, were continually expecting 
that an armed force of Anabaptists would 
come to their aid. But the Anabaptists were 
overawed by the military force, or disgusted 



Il6 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

by the fantastic doings in the city, and no 
army came. The town was wasted by famine, 
weakened at last by dissensions, and betrayed 
by traitors. June 25, 1535, it fell, and Ana- 
baptism in Germany fell with it. There was 
great slaughter in the town, and the captured 
leaders, after tortures truly diabolical in their 
cruelty, were finally hung up in cages to the 
towers of the city, to die of starvation and ex- 
posure, and the cages hung there until very 
recent times, when for very shame they were 
taken down. 

The entire responsibility for these disorders 
was at once thrown upon the Anabaptists. 
There was this excuse for so doing, that several 
of the ringleaders, and a considerable number 
of their followers, called themselves or were 
called by that name. Yet the principles of 
Rothmann, in his writings that remain, are 
totally opposed to his conduct at Mlinster. 
In none of the Anabaptist literature of the 
time is there anything but horror and detes- 
tation expressed for the Mlinster doings ; and 
even before they were made the scapegoats of 
this uprising, th^rr writings were full of re- 
proofs spoken against any who would propa- 
gate religion by the sword. Miinster was not 
more decidedly contrary to the teachings of 
the Reformers than it was to the teachings of 



THE FANATICAL ANABAPTISTS \\J 

the Anabaptists generally. It is no more fair 
to hold the Anabaptists as a whole responsible 
for what occurred there, because Matthys and 
Bockhold were Anabaptists, than it is to hold 
the Lutherans responsible because Rothmann 
was a Lutheran when he began his evil career. 
Cornelius, the able and judicial Roman Catho- 
lic historian of the Mlinster uproar, says justly : 
"All these excesses were condemned and 
opposed wherever a large assembly of the 
brethren afforded an opportunity to give ex- 
pression to the religious consciousness of the 
Anabaptist membership. ' ' Flisslin, a conscien- 
tious and impartial German investigator, says : 
' ' There was a great difference between Ana- 
baptists and Anabaptists. There were those 
amongst them who held strange doctrines, but 
this cannot be said of the whole sect. If we 
should attribute to every sect whatever sense- 
less doctrines two or three fanciful fellows have 
taught, there is no one in the world to whom 
we could not ascribe the most abominable 
errors. ' ' 

But though these juster views now prevail, 
even in Germany, contemporary opinion pro- 
nounced an Anabaptist worthy of any punish- 
ment that could be devised. The most atro- 
cious crimes were not avenged with a severity 
greater than was visited on the members of this 



118 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

sect. Even before this the Diet of Speier de- 
creed, (April. 1529) that " every Anabaptist 
and rebaptized person of either sex be put to 
death by the sword, or fire, or otherwise," and 
it was no empty form of words. Though the 
greatest cruelties were practised in Roman Cath- 
olic countries, Protestant Germany was not far 
behind ; and both, by their savage persecutions, 
branded themselves with an indelible disgrace. 
Cornelius, though a Roman Catholic a most 
candid writer on this period, says of the extent 
of these persecutions : ' ' In Tyrol and Gorz, 
the number of the executions in the year 1531 
already reached one thousand ; in Ensisheim, 
six hundred. At Linz, seventy-three were 
killed in six weeks. Duke William, of Bava- 
ria, surpassing all others, issued the fearful 
decree to behead those who recanted, to burn 
those who refused to recant. Throughout the 
greater part of upper Germany the pesecutions 
raged like a wild chase. The blood of these 
poor people flowed like water ; so they cried 
to the Lord for help. But hundreds of them, 
of all ages and both sexes, suffered the pangs 
of torture without a murmur, despised to buy 
their lives by recantation, and went to the 
place of execution joyful and singing Psalms. " 
After the savage persecution following the 
downfall of Miinster one might have expected 



THE FANATICAL ANABAPTISTS II9 

the Anabaptists to have been extirpated. Their 
prominent leaders, it is true, disappeared, 
some being put to death, some dying of hard- 
ships and excessive toils. They were not en- 
tirely without leadership, however, and their 
dauntless fidelity to the truth continued. In 
Moravia, about the middle of the sixteenth 
century, there were seventy communities of 
Anabaptists, prosperous farmers and trades- 
men, acknowledged to be among the most 
thrifty and law-abiding element of the popula- 
tion. In Strasburg, in Augsburg, in Bohemia, 
and in Moldavia, they were also found in large 
numbers, and wherever found they were 
marked men by reason of their godly lives 
and good citizenship. Fifty years later, how- 
ever, persecution had done its work only too 
well, and early in the seventeenth century we 
find the Anabaptists disappear from the history 
of Germany. They survived somewhat later in 
Poland, where they became quite numerous, 
and a large section of them adopted the 
Socinian theology. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 




HE result of the disorders at Miin- 
ster, as we have seen, was to affix 
an ineffaceable stigma of disgrace 
upon the Anabaptist name. Henceforth Ana- 
baptist was the synonym of all that was fanati- 
cal in creed and immoral in conduct. With- 
out mercy and without distinction, all who 
bore the name were persecuted, until they 
were either exterminated or driven into hid- 
ing. But the Anabaptist movement was only 
checked, it could not be stopped ; like a 
stream that, turned aside by an obstacle, cuts 
out a new channel for itself, under another 
name and in other lands it continued, and its 
results are seen at the present day. 

The man with whom this new Anabaptist 
movement was connected was born in Fries- 
land, according to the best authorities, in 
1492. Little is known of his youth, except 
that he was educated for the priesthood and 
was ordained about 1515. Though the Ref- 
ormation did not extend to his region until' 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 121 

later, its echoes probably reached him, and 
confirmed in him doubts that he had from the 
first regarding the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion — that is, that at the consecration of the 
elements in the mass, the bread and wine, 
while retaining their "accidents," became 
changed as to their ' ' substance ' ' into the very 
body and blood of Christ. For a time Menno 
tried to put away these doubts as temptations 
of the devil, but at length he took to the study 
of the Scriptures, which he had before re- 
garded as a dangerous and seducing book. 
Seducing from the errors of Rome he indeed 
found it, for in no long time he was a new 
man because, of that study, and began to 
preach with a new evangelical power. 

While in this state of mind he hears of the 
martyrdom of one Sicke Snijder (as his sur- 
name indicates, only a poor tailor), who, on 
the 30th of March, 1531, was condemned, as 
the court record reads, "to be executed by 
the sword ; his body shall be laid on the 
wheel, and his head set on a stake, because he 
has been rebaptized and perseveres in that bap- 
tism ' ' ; all of which was duly done. The 
blood of that poor tailor produced a host of 
followers to the Lord, for whom he joyfully 
gave all that he had, even his life ; for it led 
Menno Simons, after a long and hard struggle, 



122 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

to decisive action. Until 1536 he continued 
to be a priest of the Roman Church, long after 
he had ceased to hold or teach Catholic doc- 
trine ; but at length his conscience could no 
longer tolerate such a compromise, and he 
resigned his office and began the great work 
of his life as an independent religious teacher. 
The work of Menno closed only with his 
death in 1559. Not without interruptions, it 
was practically continuous and very fruitful. 
At its beginning the Anabaptists were greatly 
divided, as well as discouraged. One party 
still held to the views that had been practi- 
cally embodied at Miinster ; they defended 
polygamy, believed in the speedy second com- 
ing of Christ, a second time incarnated to set 
up an earthly kingdom, which his followers 
were to defend and extend by the sword. The 
other party condemned polygamy and the 
sword. The strife was keen, but the weight 
of Menno' s influence turned the scale in favor 
of purity and peace. From the first he repu- 
diated the ideas of Miinster. In his " Exit 
from Papacy ' ' he wrote as follows : ' ' Beloved 
reader, we have been falsely accused by our 
opponents of defending the doctrine of Miin- 
sterites, with respect to king, sword, revolu- 
tion, self-defense, polygamy, and many similar 
abominations ; but know, my good reader, that 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 12$ 

never in my life have I assented to those arti- 
cles of the Miinster Confession ; but for years, 
according to my small gift, I have warned and 
opposed them in their abominable errors. I 
have, by the word of the Lord, brought some 
of them to the right way. Miinster I have 
never seen in all my life. I have never been 
in their communion. I hope, by God's grace, 
with such never to eat or drink (as the Scrip- 
tures teach), except they confess from the 
heart their abominations and bring forth fruits 
meet for repentance and truly follow the gos- 
pel." 

Menno was an apostle of the truth, preach- 
ing and founding churches across the whole of 
Northern Europe, from France to Russia. In 
spite of the severest edicts and the bloodiest 
persecutions, he continued faithful to his call- 
ing, and found willing hearers of the gospel 
wherever he went. He enforced a strict stand- 
ard of morals, repressed all tendencies toward 
fanaticism, and gradually molded his followers 
into the mild, peaceful, and moral people that 
the Mennonites have ever since been. His 
last years were spent in Holstein. He was a 
voluminous writer, and during his last decade 
he established a printing press and secured the 
wide circulation of his writings. These are 
mostly in the Dutch language, though some 



124 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

were originally written in * c Oostersch ' ' and 
very badly translated into Dutch. The issue 
of his * ' Fundamental Book of the True Chris- 
tian Faith,' ' in 1539, established his doctrinal 
teaching on solid grounds. It differed from 
the Reformed theology only in maintaining 
the spiritual idea of the church, as a com- 
munion of true saints, and the necessary con- 
sequence of this idea, the rejection of infant 
baptism. 

The churches thus established increased in 
numbers rapidly. Menno and his followers, 
while they grasped the fundamental idea of the 
spiritual constitution of the church, did not 
reach the full truth as Baptists understand it. 
They baptized only those who gave credible 
evidence of regeneration, but, misled by the 
practice of all other churches about them, they 
looked upon affusion as sufficient. Their rapid 
growth was largely due to two causes. The 
change of name was greatly in their favor. To 
say ' ' Anabaptist ' ' produced much the same 
effect in those days that the cry of "mad 
dog" does in ours. To say " Mennonite M 
at most provoked a feeling of mild curiosity as 
to what this new sect might be — so much is 
there in a name, Shakespeare to the contrary 
notwithstanding. A second thing greatly in 
favor of this new development of the Anabap- 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS I 25 

tists was the fact that the Netherlands favored 
a much greater measure of religious liberty 
than was found anywhere else in Europe. 
After 1 58 1 the mild, peaceable, and law-abiding 
character of the Mennonites gained for them a 
measure of toleration that other Anabaptist 
bodies failed to enjoy ; and with the inde- 
pendence of the Netherlands came religious 
freedom, the Mennonites being formally recog- 
nized in 1672. This is probably the reason 
why they alone, of the Anabaptist parties of 
the Reformation, have survived to the present 
day. 

One branch of Menno's followers, those 
especially in Lithuania, at the invitation of 
Empress Catherine II. , emigrated to Russia, 
and there founded flourishing agricultural com- 
munities, especially in the Crimea. They were 
for a long time treated with exceptional favor, 
their faith not only being tolerated, but the 
male members being exempted from military 
service on account of their religious scruples 
against bearing arms. Their descendants abode 
there until, in 187 1, an imperial decree de- 
prived them of this exemption, since when 
many of them have emigrated to America, 
forming strong colonies in several of our West- 
ern States. Many others have come from 
Holland and elsewhere, and the majority of 



126 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Mennonites are now found on American soil. 
In the census of 1890 twelve branches are re- 
ported, with slight differences in polity and 
doctrine, aggregating a membership of 41,541. 

While the Mennonites as a whole have from 
the first practised affusion, there have been 
some exceptions. The congregation at Ryns- 
burg, known as Collegiants, adopted immer- 
sion in 1 6 19, a fact that had important rela- 
tions to the Baptists of England, as we shall 
see. One branch in the United States, that 
coming from Russia, practises immersion ex- 
clusively, and another immerses by preference 
but affuses those who prefer that form. 

Neither their love of Christ nor their fear of 
persecution was able to keep the Anabaptists 
of the sixteenth century from internal dissen- 
sions ; and this was especially true of the fol- 
lowers of Menno. Since they had no formal 
creeds and professed the Scriptures alone as 
their standard of faith and practice, it was 
natural that considerable differences should 
arise among them. They became divided into 
High and Low {Obere and Untere). The 
former held to vigorous discipline, or the 
' ' ban. ' ' The Low party would reserve the 
i i ban ' ' for cases of flagrant immorality. The 
button controversy is one of the curiosities of 
church literature, and it arose in this wise : 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS \2J 

The traditional method of fastening the gowns 
of women and the coats of men had been 
hooks and eyes. The Mennonites held views 
about soberness of dress and shunning con- 
formity, to the fashions of the world similar to 
those afterward associated with the Friends or 
Quakers. Accordingly, when buttons were 
invented and introduced, the use of them on a 
garment was held to be the badge of a carnal 
mind, it was a conformity to the spirit of this 
world unworthy of a true Christian. This was 
the ground on which this apparently trivial 
controversy was fiercely fought for generations ; 
and to this day some of the descendants of the 
High party, even in this country, fasten their 
coats with the old-fashioned hooks and eyes 
(and are popularly known as ' ' Hook-and-eye 
Dutch "). In general, it may be said that the 
High party demanded a discipline extending 
far beyond Scripture precedent, and concern- 
ing itself with the minutest details of daily 
living. The Low party were in favor of a more 
rational measure of Christian liberty. In some 
cases the High party also insisted as an article 
of faith on letting the beard grow, while the 
Low party denied that the use of the razor was 
contrary to the word of God. 

Followers of Menno appeared in England in 
the sixteenth century, as we learn from many 



128 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

historical documents. They fled thither to 
escape the persecutions that then raged in 
Holland, but in this they were doomed to dis- 
appointment, for England harried the Ana- 
baptists no less than Holland, casting them 
into prison and burning them at the stake. 

That these Anabaptists were really an inof- 
fensive folk, and that they held the views of 
the modern Baptists in the main, is proved by 
one of the earliest documents in which they 
are mentioned, a proclamation of Henry 
VIII., in which their alleged heresies were 
thus enumerated : ' ' Infants ought not to be 
baptized ; it is not lawful for a Christian man 
to bear office or rule in the commonwealth ; 
every manner of death, with the time and 
hour thereof, is so certainly prescribed, ap- 
pointed, and determined to every man by 
God, that neither any prince by his word can 
alter it, nor any man by his willfulness prevent 
or change it. ' ' 

In the sermons of Roger Hutchinson, pub- 
lished by the Parker Society, is a discourse 
preached prior to 1560, the following from 
which describes one tenet on which the Ana- 
baptists of that day laid special stress : 

"Whether may a man sue forfeits against 
regrators, forestallers, and other oppressors ? 
Or ought patience to restrain us from all suit 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS I 29 

and contention ? ' Aye, ' saith master Ana- 
baptist ; ' for Christ our Master, whose exam- 
ple we must follow, he would not condemn an 
advoutress woman to be stoned to death, ac- 
cording to the law, but shewed pity to her, 
and said, "Go and sin no more " (John 8) ; 
neither would he, being desired to be an ar- 
biter, judge between two brethren and deter- 
mine their suit (Luke 12). When the people 
would have made him their king he conveyed 
himself out of sight, and would not take on 
himself such office. Christ the Son of God 
would not have refused these functions and 
offices if with the profession of a Christian 
man it were agreeable with the temporal sword 
to punish offenders, to sustain any public 
room, and to determine controversies and 
suits ; if it were lawful for private men to per- 
secute such suits, and to sue just and rightful 
titles. He non est dominatus sed fiassus ; 
would be no magistrate, no judge, no gov- 
ernor, but suffered and sustained trouble, in- 
jury, wrong, and oppression patiently. And 
so must we • for Paul saith, " That those which 
he foreknew he also ordained before — ut essent 
conformes imagini Filii sni — that they should be 
alike fashioned into the shape of his Son. ' ' ' ' ' 
In 1550 Joan Boucher, of Kent, was burned 
for heresy. She held a doctrine common 



I30 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

among the German Anabaptists, from the time 
of Melchior Hofmann, that though Jesus was 
born of Mary he did not inherit her flesh ■ the 
idea being that if he had, he .must have shared 
her sinful human nature. It was crude theology, 
but the harmless error of untrained minds. A 
wise church would have winked at a matter 
that so slightly concerned a godly life ; but for 
this offense, and the kindred crime of being 
an Anabaptist, Joan of Kent suffered death 
at the stake. In 1575 Hendrik Terwoort, a 
Fleming by birth, died in the same way for re- 
jecting infant baptism and the bearing of 
arms. A confession of faith that he penned 
while in prison contains the first declaration in 
favor of complete religious liberty made on 
English soil : 

6 ' Observe well the command of God : 
' Thou shalt love the stranger as thyself. ' 
Should he then who is in misery, and dwelling 
in a strange land, be driven thence with his 
companions, to their great damage ? Of this 
Christ speaks, ' Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them : for 
this is the law and the prophets.' Oh, that 
they would deal with us according to natural 
reasonableness and evangelical truth, of which 
our persecutors so highly boast ! For Christ 
and his disciples persecuted no one ; on the 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS I 3 I 

contrary, Jesus hath thus taught, ' Love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you,' etc. This 
doctrine Christ left behind with his apostles, 
as they testify. Thus Paul, ' Unto this present 
hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are 
naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain 
dwelling place ; and labor, working with our 
own hands ; being reviled, we bless ; being 
persecuted, we suffer it. ' From all this it is 
clear, that those who have the one true gospel 
doctrine and faith will persecute no one, but 
will themselves be persecuted." 

The writings of this period and the pub- 
lished sermons of English divines (such as 
Latimer, Cranmer, Hutchinson, Whitgift, and 
Coverdale) are full of references to the Ana- 
baptists and their heresies. Thus, in 1589, 
Dr. Some wrote ' ' A Godly Treatise, ' ' in 
which he charged the Anabaptists with holding 
the following deadly errors : 

"That the ministers of the gospel ought to 
be maintained by the voluntary contributions 
of the people ; 

' ' That the civil power has no right to make 
and impose ecclesiastical laws ; 

6 ' That people ought to have the right of 
choosing their own ministers ; 

* ' That the high commiccion court was an 
an ti- Christian usurpation • 



132 SHORT HISTORY OB' THE BAPTISTS 

i ' That those who are qualified to preach 
ought not to be hindered by the civil power, ' ' 
etc. 

Traces of the presence in England of Ana- 
baptists of foreign origin continue during the 
reign of Elizabeth, but with the decline of 
persecution on the continent their numbers 
dwindled until they disappeared. They may 
have converted to their views a few English- 
men here and there, but they do not seem to 
have made any permanent impression on the 
English people, nor is the historical connection 
clear between them and the later bodies of 
Englishmen bearing the same name. All 
the traces of their presence in England disap- 
pear by the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. 



PART III 



THE EVANGELIZING CHURCH 



CHAPTER IX 

THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS ORIGIN AND 

DOCTRINES 




ITH the first decade of the seven- 
teenth century we reach solid ground 
in Baptist history. Before that the 
history is more or less a matter of conjecture 
and our conclusions are open to doubt ; but 
after that we have an unbroken succession of 
Baptist churches, established by indubitable 
documentary evidence. The most that we can 
say of the various Anabaptist bodies of the 
Continent is that on the whole certain of them 
seem to have held those views of Scripture 
teaching that are fundamental in the Baptist 
faith of to-day. But from about the year 
1 64 1, at latest, Baptist doctrine and practice 
have been the same in all essential features 
that they are to-day. Subsequent changes 
have not affected the substance of faith or the 
chief matters of practice in the denomination 
as a whole. 

The first church of English Baptists was not 
organized on English soil, but in Holland. 
This curious fact was due to the following chain 

i35 



I36 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of circumstances : The Rev. John Smyth ma- 
triculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 
15 7 1 (whence we may conclude that he was 
born somewhere between 1550 and 1555), and 
after graduation was elected a fellow and ap- 
pointed vicar of Gainsborough, in Lincoln- 
shire. Here he distinguished himself for a 
while as an opponent of the Separatists, but in 
no long time adopted their views, and resigned 
his vicarage to become pastor of an independ- 
ent church, possibly as early as 1602. He 
was a fervid, restless-spirited man, as well as a 
learned, and to the end of his days did not 
cease to be an earnest seeker after the truth. 
To escape persecution, Smyth and his Gains- 
borough flock emigrated to Holland, where 
they formed the Second English church at 
Amsterdam, and their teacher supported him- 
self by practising medicine. Here he became 
acquainted with the theology of Arminius, and 
here, it is reasonable to suppose, he learned 
the Mennonite theory of the nature of the 
church. If he had had doubts before con- 
cerning infant baptism they were now con- 
firmed into conviction that it is not warranted 
by the Scriptures, and that a scriptural church 
should consist of the regenerate only, who 
have been baptized on a personal confession of 
faith. He gave utterance to these views in a 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS 1 37 

tract called ' ' The Character of the Beast, ' ' 
for which he was disfellowshiped by his former 
friends. Smyth, Thomas Helwys, and thirty- 
six others, then formed in 1608 the first Bap- 
tist church composed of Englishmen that is 
known to have existed. 

Smyth is generally called the i \ Se-Baptist, ' ' 
which means that he baptized himself. There 
can be no doubt that such was the case, since 
an acknowledgment of the fact still exists in 
his own handwriting. In this respect he re- 
sembled Roger Williams. He held that the 
real apostolic succession is a succession not of 
outward ordinances and visible organizations, 
but of true faith and practice. He therefore 
believed that the ancient, true apostolic suc- 
cession had been lost, and that the only way 
to recover it was to begin a church anew on 
the apostolic model. Accordingly, having first 
baptized himself, he baptized Helwys and the 
rest, and so constituted the church. They 
soon after issued a Confession of Faith, Armin- 
ian in its theology, but distinct in its claim that 
a church should be composed only of baptized 
believers, and that only such should ' ' taste of 
the Lord's Supper." 

It is certain that the baptism of Smyth and 
his followers was an affusion, for a body of 
Mennonite ministers made an inquiry into this 



I38 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

matter, when at a later time Smyth gave up his 
Anabaptist views and sought admission to the 
Mennonite body, and reported: "We . . . 
also inquired for the foundation and form of 
their baptism, and we have not found that 
there was any difference at all, neither in the 
one nor the other thing." Several Confes- 
sions — at least four in all — were issued by 
Smyth and this church, in which baptism is 
defined as "the external sign of the remission 
of sins, of dying and being made alive/' as 
"washing with water," as "to be ministered 
only upon penitent and faithful persons," and 
the like ; but nothing is said in any of them 
of immersion as the form of baptism. 

Smyth died in 181 2, but before that the 
church he had been instrumental in founding 
had disappeared from Holland. Persecution 
seems to have become less severe in England, 
and Thomas Helwys and others returned to 
London, probably some time in 161 1, and 
founded the first Baptist church composed of 
Englishmen known to have existed on English 
soil. This church was also Arminian in the- 
ology, and churches of this type came to be 
called General Baptists, because they held to 
a general atonement for all men, while ortho- 
dox Calvinists then held to a "particular" 
atonement, for the elect only. By the year 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS 1 39 

1626 there were eleven such churches in Eng- 
land, and in 1644 they had increased to forty- 
seven, according to their opponents ; possibly 
there were more. Once they had a fair 
opportunity to preach New Testament truth 
among their countrymen, Baptists throve rap- 
idly in England. 

The Calvinistic, or Particular Baptists, had a 
quite different origin. An account of the 
founding of the first church of that order is 
thus given by William Kifiin, an eminent Bap- 
tist of that time : 

' ' There was a congregation of Protestant 
Dissenters of the Independent persuasion in 
London, gathered in the year 16 16, whereof 
Mr. Henry Jacob was the first pastor ; and 
after him succeeded Mr. John Lathrop, who 
was their minister at this time. In this society 
several persons, finding that the congregation 
kept not to their first principles of separation, 
and being also convinced that baptism was not 
to be administered to infants, but such only as 
professed faith in Christ, desired that they 
might be dismissed from that communion, and 
allowed to form a distinct congregation, in such 
order as was most agreeable to their own sen- 
timents. The church, considering that they 
were now grown very numerous, and so more 
than could, in these times of persecution, con- 



I40 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

veniently meet together, and believing also 
that those persons acted from a principle of 
conscience, and not obstinacy, agreed to allow 
them the liberty they desired, and that they 
should be constituted a distinct church, which 
was formed the 12th of September, 1633. 
And as they believed that baptism was not 
rightly administered to infants, so they looked 
upon the baptism they had received in that 
age as invalid ; whereupon most or all of 
them received a new baptism. ' ' 

Their minister was Mr. John Spilsbury. 
Their number is uncertain, because to the 
mention of the names of about twenty men 
and women, it is added, ' ' with divers others. ' ' 
This account is confirmed by the MSS. to 
which so much recent notoriety has been given, 
the so-called ' i Jessey records. ' ' One of these 
MSS., also called the " Kiffin MS.," because 
its authorship has been attributed to Mr. Kif- 
fin, purports to give an account of the intro- 
duction of immersion into the church so 
formed. The account is quoted with the 
quaint spelling of the original : 

" 1640. 3rd. Mo : The Church became two 
by mutuall consent just half being with Mr. P. 
Barebone, & y e other halfe with Mr. H. Jes- 
sey. Mr. Richd Blunt w th him being con- 
vinced of Baptism y* also it ought to be by 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS 141 

dipping in y e Body into y e Water, resembling 
Burial and riseing again Col. 2. 12, Rom. 6, 4 
had sober Conferance about in y e Church, & 
then w th some of the forenamed who also were 
so convinced ; and after Prayer & Conferance 
about their so enjoying it, none having then 
so practiced it in England to professed Be- 
lievers, & hearing that some in and y e Nether 
Lands had so practiced, they agreed and sent 
over Mr. Rich'd Blunt (who understood 
Dutch) with Letters of Commendation, and 
who was kindly accepted there, and Returned 
w th Letters from them Jo : Batten a teacher 
there, and from that Church to such as sent 
him. 

" 1 64 1. They proceed on therein, viz 
Those Persons y* ware perswaded Baptism 
should be by dipping y e Body had mett in two 
Companies, and did intend so to meet after 
this, all those Agreed to proceed alike togeather : 
and then manifesting (not by any formal 
Words) a Covenant (w ch Word was Scrupled 
by some of them) but by mutual desires and 
agreement each Testified : Those two Com- 
panyes did set apart one to Baptize the rest : 
so it was Solemnly performed by them. 

"Mr. Blunt baptized Mr. Blacklock y* was 
a Teacher amongst them, and Mr. Blunt being 
baptized, he and Mr. Blacklock Baptized y e 



142 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

rest of their friends y* ware so minded, and 
many being added to them they increased 
much. ' ' 

By the year 1644 the number of Particular 
Baptist churches had increased to seven. In 
that year these seven churches and one French 
church of the same faith united in issuing a 
Confession of Faith, composed of fifty articles, 
which is one of the chief landmarks of Baptist 
history. 

The Confession, besides giving a brief expo- 
sition of gospel truth according to the Calvin- 
istic theology, pronounces baptism ' ' an ordi- 
nance of the New Testament given by Christ, 
to be dispensed upon persons professing faith, 
or that are made disciples ; who, upon profes- 
sion of faith, ought to be baptized, and after- 
ward to partake of the Lord's Supper." It 
then specifies, "That the way and manner of 
the dispensing this ordinance is dipping or 
plunging the body under water ; it being a 
sign, must answer the thing signified, which is, 
that interest the saints have in the death, burial, 
and resurrection of Christ : and that as cer- 
tainly as the body is buried under water and 
risen again, so certainly shall the bodies of the 
saints be raised by the power of Christ in the 
day of the resurrection, to reign with Christ," 
And a note to this section adds : ' ' The word 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS 1 43 

baptizo signifies to dip or plunge (yet so as 
convenient garments be upon both the admin- 
istrator and subject, with all modesty). ' ' Eng- 
lish Baptists were accused by their opponents 
of baptizing converts in a state of nakedness, 
and doing other scandalous things, hence the 
statement in parentheses was necessary, and 
the 1651 edition of the Confession adds these 
words : " Which is also our practice, as many 
eye-witnesses can testify." The Confessions 
issued before this time are not so explicit in 
defining baptism as immersion, but they are 
equally plain in placing baptism before partici- 
pation in the Lord's Supper. One of the 
fourfold Confessions issued by the Smyth- 
Helwys Church in Holland says : ' i The Holy 
Supper, according to the institution of Christ, 
is to be administered to the baptized." In- 
deed, in the whole history of Baptists not a 
Confession can be produced that advocates the 
invitation or admission to the Lord's Table of 
the unbaptized. Nevertheless, some English 
Baptist churches, being formed of Separatist 
elements, did from the first claim and exercise 
liberty in respect to this ordinance. 

Though this Confession is the first to define 
baptism in explicit terms as immersion, im- 
mersion could not have been a novel idea 
among Baptists. The practice of immersion 



144 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

had not yet wholly died out of the English 
Church, though it was rapidly becoming un- 
common. So late as 1644, an English clergy- 
man, Blake, rector of Tamworth, says: "I 
have been an eye-witness of many infants 
dipped, and I know it to have been the con- 
stant practice of many ministers in their places 
for many years together. ' ' While it is certain 
that from about 1641 immersion was the uni- 
form practice of Baptists, many maintain that 
it was at least occasionally practised among 
them from the first. That some had the idea 
we know. As early as 16 14 Leonard B usher, 
a citizen of London, wrote in his "Religion's 
Peace ' ' : " And such as shall willingly and 
gladly receive it [the gospel] he hath com- 
manded to be baptized in the water ; that is, 
dipped for dead in the water." It is not a 
perfectly safe inference, however, from this 
teaching that there was a corresponding prac- 
tice. That sort of logic would prove that both 
Luther and Calvin were immersionists, and 
lead us into all sorts of absurdities if it were 
consistently applied throughout the history of 
the Church. Nothing is commoner than to 
find lack of correspondence between teaching 
and practice. 

The Confession of 1644 is outspoken also in 
the advocacy of religious liberty as the right, 



THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS 145 

and of good citizenship as the duty, of every 
Christian man. The following article is worth 
quoting in full, as the first publication of the 
doctrine of freedom of conscience in an official 
document representing a body of associated 
churches : 

"XLVIII. A civil magistracy is an ordi- 
nance of God, set up by him for the punish- 
ment of evil doers, and for the praise of them 
that do well ; and that in all lawful things, com- 
manded by them, subjection ought to be given 
by us in the Lord, not only for the wrath, but 
for conscience' sake ; and that we are to 
make supplications and prayers for kings, and 
all that are in authority, that under them we 
may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godli- 
ness and honesty. 

"The supreme magistracy of this kingdom 
we acknowledge to be King and Parliament. 
. . . And concerning the worship of God, 
there is but one lawgiver, . . which is Jesus 
Christ. . . So it is the magistrate's duty to 
tender the liberty of men's consciences (Eccl. 
8 : 8), (which is the tenderest thing unto all con- 
scientious men, and most dear unto them, and 
without which all other liberties will not be 
worth the naming, much less the enjoying), 
and to protect all under them from all wrong, 
injury, oppression, and molestation. . . And 



I46 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

as we cannot do anything contrary to our un- 
derstandings and consciences, so neither can 
we forbear the doing of that which our under- 
standings and consciences bind us to do. 
And if the magistrates should require us to do 
otherwise, we are to yield our persons in a pas- 
sive way to their power, as the saints of old 
have done (James 5 : 4)." 

This is a great landmark, not only of Bap- 
tists, but of the progress of enlightened Chris- 
tianity. Those who published to the world 
this teaching, then deemed revolutionary and 
dangerous, held, in all but a few points of 
small importance, precisely those views of 
Christian truth that are held by Baptists to-day. 
For substance of doctrine, any of us might sub- 
scribe to it without a moment's hesitation. 
On the strength of this one fact, Baptists might 
fairly claim that, whatever might have been 
said by isolated individuals before, they were 
the pioneer body among modern Christian de- 
nominations to advocate the right of all men 
to worship God, each according to the dictates 
of his own conscience, without let or hindrance 
from any earthly power. 




CHAPTER X 

THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS THE STRUGGLE FOR 

LIBERTY 

ilHE contest between Charles I. and his 
people had come to an acute crisis 
before the Confession of 1644 was 
printed. He had showed, under the tutelage 
of Laud in the Church, the same imperious 
temper and the same persecuting spirit that he 
showed under Strafford's counsel in the State. 
It was all one to him whether Hampden refused 
to pay ship-money, or the obstinate Scots re- 
fused to accept his liturgy. Baptists fared 
hard during the earlier years of his reign, but 
from the meeting of the Long Parliament, in 
November, 1640, they had peace, and in- 
creased rapidly in numbers. Almost to a man 
they were supporters of the Parliamentary 
cause, which was the cause of liberty, religious 
as well as civil. Large numbers of Baptists 
took service in the armies of Parliament, some 
of whom rose to a high rank, and were much 
trusted by the Lord Protector, Cromwell. 

The period of the civil war was thus one of 
comparative immunity for those who had been 

i47 



I48 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

persecuted, yet the toleration practically en- 
joyed by the Baptists was not a legal status ; 
they still had no civil rights that their stronger 
neighbors were bound to respect ; and it was 
only the dire necessity of uniting all forces 
against the king that led the Presbyterian Par- 
liament to refrain from active measures of re- 
pression. The leading Westminster divines re- 
buked Parliament in sermons and pamphlets 
for suffering the Baptists to increase, but po- 
litical considerations were for a time para- 
mount. A single incident illustrates the Pres- 
byterian idea of liberty of conscience at this 
time. In 1646, one Morgan, a Roman Catho- 
lic, unable to obtain priest's orders in Eng- 
land, went to Rome for them, and on his 
return, was hanged, drawn, and quartered, for 
this heinous offense. The unspeakable Papist 
could not be tolerated on any terms by the 
Presbyterian party. 

Against a general toleration the Presbyte- 
rians protested vigorously. Thomas Edwards 
declared that ' ' Could the devil effect a tolera- 
tion, he would think he had gained well by 
the Reformation, and made a good exchange 
of the hierarchy to have a toleration for it. M 
Even the saintly Baxter said : "I abhor un- 
limited liberty and toleration of all, and think 
myself easily able to prove the wickedness of 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 1 49 

it." Well might Milton, incensed by such 
teachings and by attempts in Parliament to 
give them effect, break forth in his memorable 
protest, moved by a righteous indignation that 
could not find expression in honeyed words or 
courteous phrases : 

Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword 

To force our consciences, that Christ set free, 

And ride us with a classic hierarchy ? 

And with bitter truth he added, 

New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large. 

Not in vain was his subsequent appeal to 
Cromwell for protection from these wolves in 
sheep's clothing, who had broken- down one 
tyranny only to erect on its base another more 
odious : 

Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war ; new foes arise, 
Threat' ning to bind our souls with secular chains ; 
Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw. 

Nothing but the overthrow of the Long 
Parliament, and with it the Presbyterian domi- 
nation, prevented a more tyrannous and im- 
placable persecution than any that disgraces 
the fair page of England's annals, One of the 
last acts of the Presbyterian party was to pass 



I50 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

a law (1648) making death the penalty for 
eight errors in doctrine, including the denial 
of the Trinity, and prescribing indefinite im- 
prisonment for sixteen other errors, one of 
which was the denial of infant baptism. 

During the Protectorate a fair measure of 
religious liberty prevailed. Cromwell himself 
came nearer than any public man of his time 
to adopting the Baptist doctrine of equal lib- 
erty of conscience for all men. He came, at 
least, to hold that a toleration of all religious 
views — such as existed among Protestants, that 
is to say — was both right and expedient ; 
though he seems to have had no insuperable 
objections to a Presbyterian or Independent 
Church, established by law and maintained by 
the State. He was compelled to maintain a 
State religion, but he maintained it in the 
interest of no one sect. He admitted all whom 
we now call evangelical Christians to an equal 
footing in religious privileges, appointing a 
committee of Triers, of different sects, to ex- 
amine the qualifications of incumbents and 
candidates. The only standard these Triers 
were permitted to set up was godliness and 
ability to edify ; no minister was to be either 
appointed or excluded for his views of doctrine 
or polity. Several Baptists served as Triers, 
and many others received benefices during this 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY I 5 I 

time — a very inconsistent course for Baptists 
to take, and one that it is not easy to pardon, 
for they sinned against light. 

From time to time Baptists were accused of 
sedition, and various pretexts were found to 
justify their persecution ; but Cromwell could 
never be induced to move against them. It 
has been reserved for writers of our own day 
to press these stale slanders against a loyal and 
upright people. By such it has been urged, 
with insistence and bitterness, that the Bap- 
tists were not sincere in their professions of 
zealous devotion to the principle of liberty of 
conscience for all ; or, at least, that the decla- 
rations already quoted from their Confessions 
and from their published writings did not rep- 
resent the Baptists as a whole — that there were 
Baptists as intolerant and as desirous of perse- 
cuting their opponents as the most zealous 
Presbyterian of them all. 

The events of 1653 are said to furnish full 
confirmation of this view of the case. In that 
year the "Rump" Parliament was dissolved, 
and Cromwell was proclaimed Lord Protector, 
according to the provisions of an Instrument 
of Government framed by a convention he had 
called for the purpose of devising a scheme to 
regulate the affairs of the nation. It should 
seem that some of the Baptists were ardent 



152 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Republicans, and in these proceedings of 
Cromwell they saw only the workings of his 
ambition to be king. We know that four 
years later certain Baptists protested against 
the proposition to confer this title upon him, 
and that their protest had weight. Some of 
them protested now ; and the Rev. Vavasor 
Powell denounced Cromwell from the pulpit 
at a meeting in Blackfriars of certain Fifth 
Monarchy men. There were fears also for a 
time of trouble in Ireland from the Baptists, 
who were reported to be extremely disaffected 
with the new government. On these facts a 
charge is based that a part of the Baptists, at 
least, were disposed toward a religious move- 
ment that must have resulted in persecution. 
The simple fact is that the Baptists, as a 
body, were loyal to the Commonwealth and its 
head ; and the few who were disaffected op- 
posed Cromwell on civil grounds. Among 
these was General Thomas Harrison, who did 
not become a Baptist until 1657. This party 
were Republicans and suspected Cromwell of 
kingly ambitions. They had fought for an- 
other purpose than to have King Charles re- 
placed by King Oliver. Certain of these men, 
notably Harrison, also believed that the time 
was drawing near for the Fifth Monarchy. 
These were enthusiasts, misled by the study of 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY I 53 

prophecy — as had happened in the former ages 
of the church, among the mediaeval Anabap- 
tists and the earlier Montanists for example — 
into a notion that the last times were at hand, 
and that Christ was about to set up an 
earthly kingdom and reign with his saints a 
thousand years. Men's laws and traditions 
were to be altogether swept away, and the 
world was to be ruled by the law of Christ. 
This would, of itself, exclude the idea of per- 
secution when once this kingdom should have 
been established ; and before its establishment 
persecution would not have been possible. It 
is not true that the Fifth Monarchy men, as 
a body, believed in setting up this kingdom by 
the sword, as their public declarations clearly 
show. To prove that a Baptist was concerned 
in these Fifth Monarchy demonstrations does 
not show that he cherished any idea of pun- 
ishing dissent by the sword or by any form of 
persecution ; still less does it show that his 
brethren sympathized with any persecuting no- 
tions. 

But we have abundant testimony that the 
great body of the Baptists had no sympathy 
with the chiliastic ideas that lay at the basis 
of the Fifth Monarchy movement ; that they 
utterly condemned all conspiracies against the 
de facto government ; and that they exhorted 



154 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

all their brethren to follow their example in 
rendering loyal obedience to the powers that be. 
An extant letter from William Kiffin and others 
to the Baptists in Ireland gives interesting 
evidence as to the feeling of the English Bap- 
tists. The writers express sorrow that ' ' there 
is raised up in many amongst you [the Baptists 
in Ireland] a spirit of great dissatisfaction and 
opposition against this present authority," and 
exhort them to think better of their deter- 
mination to protest publicly against CromwelL 
They say : 

1 ' And this we are clearly satisfied, in that 
the principles held forth by those meeting in 
Blackfriars, under pretense of the Fifth Mon- 
archy, or setting up the kingdom of Christ, 
to which many of those lately in power ad- 
hered, had it been prosecuted, would have 
brought as great dishonor to the name of God, 
and shame and contempt to the whole na- 
tion, as we think could have been imagined. ' ' 

The letter closes with a solemn appeal in 
these words : 

' ' We do therefore beseech you for the 
Lord's sake and for the truth's sake, that it be 
not evil spoken of men, seriously weigh these 
things ; for surely if the Lord gives us hearts 
we have a large advantage put into our hands 
to give a public testimony in the face of the 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY I 55 

world. That our principles are not such as 
they have been generally judged by most men 
to be ; which is, that we deny authority and 
would pull down all magistracy. And if any 
trouble should arise, either with you or us, in 
the nation, which might proceed to the shed- 
ding of blood, would not it all be imputed and 
charged upon the baptized churches ? And 
what grief and sorrow would be administered 
to us, your brethren, to hear the name of God 
blasphemed by ungodly men through your 
means ? This we can say, that we have not 
had any occasion of sorrow from any of the 
churches in this nation with whom we have 
communion • they, with one heart, desiring to 
bless God for their liberty, and with all willing- 
ness to be subject to the present authority. 
And we trust to hear the same of you, having 
lately received an epistle written to us by all 
the churches amongst you, pressing us to a 
strict walking with God, and warning of us to 
take heed of formality, the love of this world ; 
that we slight not our mercy in the present lib- 
erties we enjoy. 1 ' 

Whether to this appeal or to the sober sec- 
ond thought is to be attributed the subsequent 
quiet of the Irish Baptists is not quite certain, 
but a letter in Thurloe's "State Papers" in- 
forms us that there was no further trouble : 



I56 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

"As to your grand affairs in Ireland, espe- 
cially as to the Anabaptist party, I am confi- 
dent they are much misconceived in England. 
Upon the change of affairs here was discontent 
enough, but very little animosity. For certainly 
never yet any faction, so well fortified by all 
the offices, military and civil, almost in the 
whole nation, did quit their interest with more 
silence. ' ' 

The Baptists were conscious that toleration 
was not likely to continue long unless the prin- 
ciple were incorporated in the law of the land. 
They continued in their writings and Confes- 
sions, therefore, to urge the duty of all Chris- 
tians to tolerate those who differed from them 
in religious belief. With this they uniformly 
coupled a disclaimer of any such doctrine of 
liberty as implied license, and enforced the 
duty of the Christian to render obedience to 
the civil magistrate in all secular affairs. 

In the year of 1660 Charles Stuart was 
brought back with great rejoicing to the throne 
of his fathers. The Baptists must have seen 
in this event the deathknell of their hopes of 
religious liberty, yet it does not appear that 
they raised voice or hand against the new king, 
though they were far from trusting his smooth 
words and promises of toleration. He was 
hardly seated on his throne when one Thomas 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY I 57 

Venner and a band of Fifth Monarchists and 
other irreconcilables made an insurrection, 
whose object was the dethronement of the 
new monarch and the setting up of the king- 
dom of Christ on earth. The slanders of the 
time accuse the Baptists of complicity in this 
disturbance. Beyond the repetition of these 
stale slanders there is not a particle of evidence 
producible that any Baptists took part in the 
insurrection. Conclusive evidence that they 
did not we have in their protest made at the 
time, and in the verdict of every candid Pedo- 
baptist historian who has carefully gone over 
the facts. Venner himself was a Pedobaptist, 
and it is not known that a single Baptist was 
among his followers. Nevertheless, persecu- 
tion on account of alleged disloyalty and here- 
sies was active and bitter. 

Doubtless Charles II. had promised more 
than any mortal could have performed ; doubt- 
less, also, he might have performed more had 
he cared to do it. The Act of Uniformity was 
not a law after his heart — it bore too hard on 
Romanists for that — but as he was powerless 
to protect them, he cared little that all other 
dissenters from the Church of England were 
harshly treated. Baptists did not fare harder 
than many others. If they kept perfectly 
quiet they were not molested ; but if they as- 



158 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

sembled for religious meetings they became 
violators of law, and the man who preached 
to them was reasonably certain of a long in- 
carceration, if he did not receive stripes and 
the stocks as well. Yet in spite of this perse- 
cution, Baptists increased in numbers rapidly. 
Britons are a sturdy folk, and rather disposed 
to sympathize with one who is hit hard ; so the 
more Baptists were forbidden to meet, the 
more people flocked to their meetings. 

The typical Baptist preacher of the time was 
John Bunyan, a man of the common people, a 
tinker by trade, one who knew little literature 
but his English Bible, but who knew that from 
lid to lid as few know it in these days. We 
learn of his early life only from his own ac- 
count ; that he was wild, irreligious, fonder of 
sports than of church, is plain, but his self- 
accusations of desperate wickedness we may 
discount heavily. When a man calls himself 
the vilest of sinners he always uses the words 
in a strict theological sense, and would quickly 
resent being charged with actual vileness, as 
Bunyan did, when he hotly denied the charge 
that he had been unchaste. After a long 
conflict of soul, in which he more than once 
gave himself up as eternally lost, Bunyan 
was at length soundly converted. He was 
never a very orthodox Baptist ; he seems to 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY I 59 

have had his children christened in the Estab- 
lished Church, and it is uncertain whether he 
was himself ever baptized on profession of 
faith 1 he repudiated the name Anabaptist or 
Baptist as the badge of a sect, and desired to 
be called merely a Christian ; he vigorously 
promulgated and defended the practice of 
communing with the unbaptized ; yet in spite 
of these vagaries his fundamental notions were 
those of a Baptist, As a preacher he had 
great influence in his day, but his chief work 
was done with the pen. It is one of the mar- 
vels of literature that a man of such antece- 
dents and training should have written books 
that from the day of publication took an un- 
disputed rank among the classics of our lan- 
guage. The "Pilgrim's Progress," the hardly 
less popular "Holy War," and "Grace 
Abounding, ' ' are a trio not to be matched in 
the history of Christianity. 

This achievement of Bunyan's we probably 
owe to the fact that his active evangelical work 
was interrupted by a long imprisonment, 
amounting with several short intervals to about 
thirteen years. His crime was the preaching 
of the gospel, nothing more ; but he would 
have been released much sooner had he been 
willing to pledge himself not to offend again. 
This the sturdy preacher would not do • if he 



l60 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

had the opportunity again he must preach, 
and so he avowed ; consequently in prison he 
stayed until the administration of the law was 
greatly relaxed, and he was set free with a 
multitude of others in like case. 

It is to his third and last imprisonment that 
we owe his immortal allegory — a book ren- 
dered into more languages than any other save 
the Bible itself; a book which, next to the Bible, 
has been the most effective teacher of peasant 
and prince ; which has been the never-failing 
delight of childhood, has comforted our weary 
hours in manhood, and will be our treasure in 
old age. As our experience broadens and 
deepens we shall see new beauties in it, for it 
is a book of which it may be truly said that it 
" was not of an age, but for all time." 

How many of us have taken the journey with 
Christian, not in imagination merely, but in 
sober fact. We have borne the same intolera- 
ble burden, have entered, like him, the little 
wicket-gate at Evangelist's bidding, falling, 
perchance, by the way, into the Slough of 
Despond, or misled by Mr. Worldly Wiseman's 
bad advice, and have, like him, lost our heavy 
load at the foot of the cross. We have had to 
climb the Hill Difficulty, and not a few of us 
have been seduced into By-Path Meadows, 
only to fall into the clutches of Giant Despair, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY l6l 

and to be cast into Doubting Castle. We 
have been tempted by the gay shows of Vanity 
Fair, and have passed through the dangers of 
the Enchanted Ground. We have been 
cheered on our way by Hopeful and Faithful, 
instructed by Interpreter, and entertained at 
the House Beautiful. On one day we have 
caught glimpses of the Delectable Mountains, 
only on the next day to enter the Valley of 
Humiliation, and fight for our lives with Apoll- 
yon. We have seen one and another of our 
companions pass through the dark river, whose 
waters our feet must soon enter, and happy 
are we to whom a vision has been granted of 
the Shining Ones, conducting them into the 
the gates of the City which, when we have 
seen, we have wished ourselves among them. 

The events of the reign of James II. were 
favorable to the development of a spirit of tol- 
eration among Protestants, who were driven 
into a closer political and religious alliance by 
the fear of Roman Catholic supremacy. The 
revolution that overthrew James placed on the 
throne the Prince of Orange, the descendant 
of that heroic leader of the Netherlands in 
their long struggle to throw off the yoke of 
Roman Catholic Spain, the first ruler in mod- 
ern history who was statesman enough and 
Christian enough to incorporate the principle 



1 62 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of religious liberty into his country's laws. 
Thanks to William III., the Act of Toleration 
was passed in 1689, which, though a mass of 
absurdities and inconsistencies when carefully 
analyzed, was yet a measure of practical justice 
to the majority, and of great relief to all. 
Even then Papists and Jews were exempted 
from its provisions, and men so enlightened 
and liberal-minded as Tillotson and Locke 
protested against granting toleration to them. 
But from that day the grosser forms of perse- 
cution ceased forever, as regarded all Protestant 
bodies, though the principle of complete re- 
ligious liberty has never yet found general 
acceptance in England. 

The Baptists of the seventeenth century had 
many curious customs, some of which were 
borrowed from them by the Friends, and sur- 
vive among the latter body to this day. The 
quaint garb of the Quaker is that of the sev- 
enteenth century Baptist. In public worship 
men and women sat on opposite sides of the 
house, both participating in the exhorting and 
"prophesying," as the "Spirit moved." 
Whether singing was an allowable part of wor- 
ship was fiercely disputed, and a salaried or 
"hireling" ministry was in great disfavor. 
The imposition of hands was practised, in the 
ordination not only of pastors, but of deacons, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 1 63 

and in many churches hands were laid on all 
who had been baptized, an act that has given 
place among American Baptists, at least, to the 
"hand of fellowship." Fasting was a com- 
mon observance, feet-washing was practised by- 
many churches, though its obligation was 
earnestly questioned, and the anointing of 
the sick was so common as to be almost the 
rule. Pastors and deacons were often elected 
by the casting of lots, and love feasts before 
the Lord's Supper were a common practice. 
The supervision of members' lives was strict. 
Marrying out of meeting, as among the Friends, 
was followed by excommunication, and the 
amusements that might be indulged in were 
carefully limited. Disputes between husbands 
and wives, between masters and servants, were 
made subjects of church discipline and adjudi- 
cation, and such offenses as covetousness, 
slander, and idleness were severely dealt with. 
To the Baptists of to-day this kind of disci- 
pline seems a meddlesome interference with 
personal rights and private affairs, and it has 
fallen into disuse in all but a few localities. 




CHAPTER XI 

ENGLISH BAPTISTS FREEDOM AND GROWTH 

EW people have borne the ordeal of 
persecution better than the English 
Baptists ; but for a century after the 
passage of the Act of Toleration it seemed 
that they were unable to bear freedom. In 
the history of Christianity it has often hap- 
pened that the people of God have grown 
marvelously in spite of opposition and perse- 
cution, but have languished in times of com- 
parative prosperity — that a sect whom fire and 
sword could not suppress have degenerated and 
disintegrated or finally disappeared when every 
external hindrance to prosperity had been 
removed. The English Baptists were to fur- 
nish another instance of this kind. After 1689 
they were given a measure of toleration such 
as they had never known in England — since it 
was toleration secured and clearly denned by 
law, not given by the arbitrary will of one man. 
There was no external obstacle to their making 
rapid, continuous, and solid growth. Every 
indication pointed toward a career of uninter- 
164 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 65 

rupted progress and prosperity. Yet fifty years 
after the passage of the Act of Toleration, 
the Baptists of England were scarcely more 
numerous than they were at the accession of 
William III. , while as to spiritual power they 
had dwindled to a painful state of deadness 
and inefficiency. 

At first, indeed, they appeared likely to 
grow with unusual rapidity. The Confessions 
issued by them at about this time show how 
quickly they felt the impulse of hope, and how 
rapid, for a season, was their development. 
In 1677, the Particular churches published a 
modified form of the Westminster Confession, 
which they reissued in 1688. This still forms 
the basis of the English Confessions, and, 
under the name of the Philadelphia Confession, 
is the system of doctrine approved by a large 
number of Baptist churches of our Southern 
and Southwestern States. The General Bap- 
tist brethren issued their Confession in 1678, 
and it is noticeable that its Arminianism is of a 
type that can hardly be distinguished from the 
milder forms of Calvinism. But while the im- 
mediate effect of toleration was stimulating, 
its later result was unfavorable to sound growth. 
Centralizing tendencies manifested themselves, 
false doctrine crept in, and there was a marked 
decline of spirituality. 



1 66 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The centralizing tendencies were strongest 
among the General Baptists. By 1671, a 
General Assembly had been organized. This 
body from the first undertook to exercise pow- 
ers incompatible with the independence of the 
churches. Not content with such legitimate 
activities as proposing plans of usefulness, rec- 
ommending cases requiring pecuniary sup- 
port, and devising means for the spread of the 
gospel, it undertook the reformation of incon- 
sistent or immoral conduct in ministers and 
private Christians, the suppression of heresy, 
the reconciling of differences between individ- 
uals and churches, and giving advice in diffi- 
cult cases to individuals and churches. Some 
Baptists of our own day, who lament the lack 
of a ' ; strong government, ' ' will find this 
something closely approaching their ideal. 

But mark the sequel. One Matthew Caffyn, 
a Sussex pastor of undoubted piety and alleged 
(but doubtful) learning, was charged with un- 
sound views concerning the nature of Christ. 
There is little doubt that his theology, if sound 
at first, came to be Arian. He deriied the 
Deity of Christ, though calling him " divine " 
— a fine-spun distinction that some modern 
Unitarians also make. Two parties sprang up 
in the Assembly, and the body was finally di- 
vided in 1689, when Caffyn's views were pro- 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 67 

nounced heretical. A new Assembly was 
formed, and by 1750 the major part of the 
General Baptists had become Unitarian in their 
beliefs. This was followed by worldliness, lax 
discipline, the superficial preaching of mere 
morality, and the members fell away in large 
numbers. In a petition that he presented to 
Charles II., Thomas Grantham declared that 
there were twenty thousand General Baptists in 
England ; in the days of George II. there were 
probably not half that number ; and of these 
a large part had the form of godliness without 
the power. The ' ' strong government ' ' had 
miserably failed to repress heresy or to pre- 
vent schism. 

The Particular Baptists organized the first 
Associations ; the Somerset, in 1653, which 
became extinct about 1657 ; and the Midland, 
formed in 1655 and reconstructed in 1690, 
which still exists. Their General Assembly 
was organized in 1689, by the agency of the 
London churches, and this body also still lives. 
At its fourth meeting, in 1692, the Association 
had in its fellowship one hundred and seven 
churches. Warned by the experience of their 
General brethren, they "disclaimed all man- 
ner of superiority or superintendency over the 
churches. ' ' They were willing to give advice 
in regard to queries, but had no notion of be- 



1 68 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

coming a court of appeals to settle church 
quarrels and try heretics. This was not for 
lack of heretics to try, for the Particular 
churches had their difficulties at this time with 
certain troublers in Israel, who professed Anti- 
nomian doctrines and complete sanctification ; 
the results of which teachings were disputes 
and divisions that caused a great decline. 

Hyper- Calvinism was developed in one sec- 
tion of the Particular churches, and everywhere 
proved a blighting doctrine. The London As- 
sociation, formed in 1704 by delegates from 
thirteen churches, deemed it necessary to con- 
demn the Antinomian perversion of Calvin- 
ism — regarding its action, however, not a judi- 
cial decision, but the deliberate opinion of 
a representative body of Baptists. The ablest 
and most learned of the Baptists of this time, 
John Gill, cannot be absolved from, responsi- 
bility for much of this false doctrine. His 
Calvinism was of that rigid supralapsarian type 
that can with difficulty be distinguished from 
Fatalism and Antinomianism. If he did not 
hold that the elect live in a constant state of 
sanctification (because of the imputed right- 
eousness of Christ), even while they commit 
much sin, he did hold that because of God's 
election Christians must not presume to inter- 
fere with his purposes by inviting sinners to the 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 69 

Saviour, for he will have mercy on whom he 
will have mercy, and on no others. This is 
practically to nullify the Great Commission ; 
and, in consequence of this belief, Calvinistic 
Baptist preachers largely ceased to warn, ex- 
hort, and invite sinners ■ holding that, as God 
will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, 
when he willed he would effectually call an 
elect person, and that for anybody else to in- 
vite people to believe was useless, if not an im- 
pertinent interference with the prerogatives of 
God. What wonder that a spiritual dry-rot 
spread among the English churches where such 
doctrines obtained ! Could any other result 
be reasonably expected as the fruits of such a 
theology ? 

It must, however, in justice be said that this 
was a time of general decline in religion among 
Englishmen, which began with the Restoration. 
The corruption of the court and of the highest 
society was great and widespread, as we may 
gather from the literature of the time. But 
during the reign of Charles II. the body of the 
people were little affected by this corruption ; 
they continued, as to moral character and relig- 
ious ideas, substantially what they had been. 
After a generation or two, however, the exam- 
ple of the higher classes was not without its 
effect. When king and courtiers made a scoff 



I70 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of religion, when they lived in open lewdness 
and ostentatious impiety, the ideals of the peo- 
ple could not fail to be greatly affected, though 
the change might be slow. The corruptions 
sown during the Stuart period were bearing 
abundant fruit in church and society long after 
the Stuarts had lost the throne of England for- 
ever. 

But it was through the clergy that the ef- 
fects of the Restoration chiefly made them- 
selves felt on the religious life of the nation. 
In the Established Church the manners and 
morals of the clergy, as depicted in contempo- 
rary literature, were frightful. The drunken, 
lecherous, swearing, gaming parson is a familiar 
character in the plays and romances of the pe- 
riod, and survives even to the beginning of the 
present century. Preferment in Church de- 
pended upon subserviency to those who were 
masters in State, and the clergy took their tone 
from the court. Not only was personal piety 
a bar to advancement rather than a recom- 
mendation, but virtual infidelity in the State 
bred rationalism in theology. The clergy be- 
came timid, apologetic, latitudinarian in their 
teaching, and the people became like unto 
them. Religion never sank to so low an ebb 
in England as during the first half of the eight- 
eenth century. 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 171 

In the year 1738, at the meeting of a Mora- 
vian Society in London, John Wesley felt, as 
he tells us, for the first time : "I did trust in 
Christ, Christ alone, for salvation ; and an as- 
surance was given me that he had taken away 
my sins, even mine, and saved me from the 
law of sin and death." Soon England w T as 
shaken by the preaching of immediate justifi- 
cation by faith, and the second Reformation 
had begun. Driven from the pulpits of the 
Established Church — of which he was, and re- 
mained to the day of his death, a presbyter in 
full standing — Wesley followed the advice of 
Whitefield, though with fear and trembling, 
and began to preach in the fields. England 
was born again in this second Reformation, 
and the new spiritual life on which her people 
then entered has endured to the present hour. 
Baptists participated in the general awakening. 
Then began a new era in their history, an era 
of growth, of zeal, of missionary activity, that 
has continued to the present time, and has 
given them a leading place among the Non- 
conformists of England. 

Among the early converts of- the Wesleyan 
revival was a youthful Yorkshireman, the son 
of a miner, himself a worker in the mines from 
his fifth year. Dan Taylor was of sturdy frame 
and great native intelligence, though his educa- 



172 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tion was naturally of the slightest. He was a 
zealous convert, and from the first engaged in 
visiting the sick and leading prayer meetings. 
His gifts in these exercises were so notable that 
he was urged to attempt to preach, and his 
first sermon was delivered in a dwelling house 
not far from Halifax, in September, 1761. He 
was urged to visit Mr. Wesley and enter regu- 
larly into the ministry as a traveling preacher ; 
but there were things in the Methodist doctrine 
and discipline to which he could not give his 
consent. Some persons of like mind invited 
him to preach to them, and he became their 
pastor at The Nook, about a mile from Hep- 
tonstall. His study of the Scripture at this 
time convinced him that believers' baptism was 
the appointment of Christ, but no Particular 
Baptist minister would baptize him, though 
several expressed their firm persuasion of his 
real Christianity, and even were well satisfied 
of his call to the ministry. He learned at 
length of Baptists in Lincolnshire agreeing with 
his sentiments, and he made a journey of one 
hundred and twenty miles on foot to seek them 
out, and was baptized in a river near Gamston, 
February 16, 1763. 

Returning, he and his people organized a 
General Baptist church • but he soon became 
aware of the state of things in this body and 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 73 

found himself more and more diverging from it 
in views and spirit. In 1769 there was held 
at Lincoln a preliminary meeting of those like- 
minded, and in 1770 the formal organization 
was effected in London of ' ' The Assembly of 
Free Grace General Baptists. ' ' The name by 
which the body has always been known, how- 
ever, is the unofficial title of "The New Con- 
nexion of General Baptists." Dan Taylor 
became the ruling spirit of this new body, as 
Wesley was of Methodism, solely by virtue of 
his force of character, powers of administra- 
tion, and enormous industry. His labors were 
herculean ; with voice and pen he was always 
busy. He found time somehow to educate 
himself fairly, and became president of their 
college and editor of their magazine. He 
traveled twenty-five thousand miles preaching 
the gospel, mostly on foot, the rest on horse- 
back 1 nine sermons a week — that is to say, 
one every evening and three on Sunday — was 
his usual allowance ; sometimes he preached 
more. A characteristic anecdote of him is 
that at one time he feared he would lose his 
eyesight and determined to learn the whole 
Bible " by heart " before it should fail. He 
actually accomplished a good part of his de- 
sign when his trouble vanished, and he gave 
up the project. In consequence of his labors 



174 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the New Connexion of General Baptists grew 
with a rapidity unexampled before or since in 
the history of the denomination in England. 
The effect of his life and labors has not yet 
passed away. 

Hardly less influential among the Particular 
Baptists was Andrew Fuller. Born in 1754 
and converted at the age of sixteen, he spent 
the greater part of his laborious life at Ketter- 
ing. He traveled over England many times ; 
five times he traversed Scotland ; once he vis- 
ited Ireland. Not a great orator, his mental 
powers and spiritual fervor made him a power- 
ful preacher and a weighty man of affairs. He 
fought hard against the Gill type of hyper- 
Calvinism, and labored with zeal and success 
to substitute for this a doctrine more conso- 
nant with the Scriptures, less paralyzing to 
Christian effort. His modified Calvinistic 
theology had great influence on the Baptist 
churches of the United States, as well as of 
England, especially his teaching of a general 
atonement sufficient for the sins of the race, 
not a particular atonement for the elect only. 
Under the influence of this teaching Baptists 
gradually ceased to call themselves Particular, 
though they remained Calvinistic. 

Some years younger than Fuller, was one 
destined to do more than any other toward the 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH I 75 

regeneration of English Baptists, and to be an 
inspiration to all other Christians. His name 
is William Carey. Born in 1761, of a stanch 
Church family, he had in early life a hatred 
of " dissenters " of every sort, but on being 
soundly converted the New Testament taught 
him what a Christian church should be, and 
he was baptized on profession of his faith by 
Dr. John Ryland, October 5, 1783, in the 
river Neu, Northampton. He soon began to 
preach, and displayed such gifts that he was 
ordained pastor of the church at Moulton, in 
1787, Andrew Fuller preaching the sermon on 
the occasion. His salary here was but seventy- 
five dollars a year, and he had a wife and two 
children ; consequently he was obliged to labor 
with his hands during the week. His trade 
was that of a cobbler — with a proud humility 
characteristic of him he refused to be called 
a shoemaker — and as he labored he kept a 
book by him. He had a marvelous facility in 
the acquisition of languages (before his death 
he is said to have been fairly versed in more 
than twenty of the languages and dialects of 
India), and in seven years of such study he had 
learned enough of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
French, and Dutch, to read easily books in all 
these languages, and that with scarcely any 
instruction. 



I76 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

It was not always a book in a foreign tongue 
that he kept at his side. One of these books 
was Captain Cook's account of his voyages, 
which he read with avidity. He also taught a 
school at this time, as a means of eking out 
his income, and the teaching of geography had 
the same effect on his mind as the reading of 
Cook' s voyages — both suggesting to him the des- 
titute spiritual condition of the heathen world 
and the duty of Christians to give the gospel 
to the heathen. He began to communicate 
his thoughts to others, but met with little en- 
couragement. English Baptists were poor, 
and the missionary enterprise seemed beset 
with insurmountable difficulty. Hyper-Calvin- 
ism was not* yet conquered. The story is old, 
and is apparently authentic, that once when 
Carey attempted to tell his story at a Baptist 
gathering, Dr. Ryland said to him sternly : 
"Sit down, young man ; when the Lord gets 
ready to convert the heathen, he will do it 
without your help or mine." But Carey did 
not consider the matter of possibilities ; he 
looked only at the question of duty. The 
Duke of Wellington replied to a young clergy- 
man who asked if it were not useless to preach 
the gospel to the Hindus: "With that you 
have nothing to do. Look to your marching 
orders, ' Go, preach the gospel to every ere a- 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH I 77 

ture. ' ' ' The soldier was right and the preacher 
stood justly rebuked. 

At the meeting of his Association at Notting- 
ham, May 30, 1792, Carey was the appointed 
preacher. He chose as his text Isaiah 44 : 
2, 3, and announced as the "heads" of his 
discourse : ' ' Expect great things from God ; 
attempt great things for God. ' ' It was one of 
the days on which the fate of denominations 
and even of nations turn. It roused those 
who listened to a new idea of their responsi- 
bility for the fulfillment of Christ's commission. 
The fire burned in a few hearts for some 
months, and then, on October 2, in Kettering 
"The English Baptist Missionary Society" 
was organized. Its constituent members were 
twelve, and out of their poverty they contrib- 
uted to its treasury the sum of ^13 2 s. 6d. 
What a sum with which to begin the evan- 
gelization of the world ! The history of this 
society is an instructive commentary on the 
Scripture, ' ' For who hath despised the day 
of small things. ' ' The London churches, the 
richer churches among Baptists, stood aloof 
from this movement. It was the poorer coun- 
try churches that finally raised enough money 
to send out in June, 1793, Carey and a Bap- 
tist surgeon named Thomas, who had pre- 
viously been in India and as he had opportu- 



178 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

nity had preached the gospel as a layman and 
physician. 

The British East India Company was bit- 
terly opposed to the preaching of the gospel in 
India, fearing that the natives might be pro- 
voked to rise against the government. It is 
not exaggerating to say that Christianity has 
done more than any other thing, more than 
strong battalions, to maintain England's rule 
in India. But the directors could not foresee 
this. One said he would see a band of devils 
let loose in India rather than a band of mis- 
sionaries. Englishmen who survived the Sepoy 
rebellion were rather less anxious to see devils 
let loose in India, and much more favorably 
disposed toward missionaries. For a time 
Carey, and the next missionaries sent, Marsh- 
man and Ward, established themselves at 
Serampore, a Danish settlement not far from 
Calcutta. Here a missionary press was set up, 
and Dr. Carey did the great work of his life in 
translating and printing the Scriptures in the 
various Indian languages. In this work he had 
much assistance, but a great part of it he did 
himself ; and in thirty years he and his breth- 
ren made the word of God accessible to a third 
of the people on the globe — two hundred and 
twelve thousand copies of the Scriptures having 
been issued before his death from Serampore, 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 79 

in forty different languages, spoken by three 
hundred and thirty million people. 

In his later years, men like Sydney Smith 
ceased to sneer at the ' ' consecrated cobbler, ' ' 
and Carey was honored as a man of his learn- 
ing, piety, and exalted character deserved. In 
1 80 1 he was made professor of Bengali in Lord 
Wellesley's new College of Fort William, at 
Calcutta ; and titles and honors were showered 
upon him toward the close of his life. The 
learned societies of Europe recognized him as 
one of the greatest scholars of his age. But he 
was to the last a humble missionary of the 
religion of Christ. Considering his rare gifts, 
he was right to spend the greater part of his 
life in making tools for other missionaries to 
work with — grammars, dictionaries, transla- 
tions. It was his best way of giving the gos- 
pel to the heathen, and his services were of 
inestimable value. He is justly regarded as 
the father of modern missions, for though Bap- 
tists were not the first in modern times to 
engage in this work, it was Carey and his work 
that drew the attention of all Christians to it, 
that quickened the Christian conscience, and 
that gave the missionary cause a great forward 
impulse which it has never since lost. 

From the first the mission thus established 
prospered, in spite of the obstacles thrown in 



l80 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

its way by British officials and the fire of ridi- 
cule kept up in the rear by men who ought to 
have been in better business. The first secre- 
tary of this body was Andrew Fuller, to whose 
indefatigable labors was due much of its growth 
in financial strength and missionary zeal. The 
society has at several times extended its opera- 
tions, and in addition various enterprises have 
been conducted by churches and individuals in 
Africa and Italy. In this work, and in many 
other forms of service, the General and Par- 
ticular Baptists unite. 

As we have already seen, from the begin- 
ning there were so-called Baptist churches of 
mixed membership — that is to say, not exclu- 
sively Baptist, but composed in part of Pedo- 
baptists. This peculiar state of affairs, which 
we find among Baptists in no other part of the 
world in all their history, is due probably to 
the circumstances of their origin. In nearly 
every case which is matter of record, the early 
Baptist churches of the seventeenth century 
were formed from previously existing Separat- 
ist churches of the Congregational order. The 
separations between those who had come to 
hold to believers' baptism only and those who 
still held to Pedobaptism, were generally 
peaceful, frequently friendly. In some cases 
there was no formal separation, the majority 



FREEDOM AND GLROWTH 151 

holding to believers' baptism and tolerating 
Pedobaptism in the minority. In other cases 
a church was organized on the principle of per- 
mitting full liberty in the matter of baptism, 
both as to subjects and form. That churches 
so composed should remain in 'full fellowship 
with Pedobaptist churches is nothing surpris- 
ing ; why should they not commune with 
Pedobaptist churches, since they admitted 
Pedobaptists to membership in their own 
churches, which of course carried with it the 
privilege of communion ? To admit some 
Pedobaptists to the Lord's table and exclude 
others would have been too ridiculous incon- 
sistency. 

From the first therefore, there was a division 
of sentiment and practice. Baptists like Wil- 
liam Kifrm, John Spilsbury, and Hanserd 
Knollys, stood for the consistent Baptist posi- 
tion that the church should consist only of 
baptized believers, and that such only are war- 
ranted or invited by New Testament precept 
and example in coming to the table of the 
Lord. On the other hand, Baptists like Henry 
Jessey, John Tombes, and John Bunyan, fav- 
ored the laxer practice of communing with all 
Christians, while Jessey and Bunyan at least 
were pastors of churches of mixed member- 
ship. There was hot debate over this question 



1 82 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of open communion, as any one may see who 
will take the trouble to examine a copy of 
Bunyan's ' ' Complete Works/ ' of which there 
are many editions. Words decidedly warm 
passed between Bunyan and Kiffin, and of 
course neither party were convinced by the 
arguments of the other. Mixed churches and 
open communion remained the practice of a 
considerable part of the English Baptists, and 
had the advocacy of some of the ablest men 
in the denomination. 

The natural result, one that might have 
been predicted from well-known principles 
of human nature, was that the growth of 
English Baptists was relatively slow, even in 
times when their piety and zeal were high. 
Baptist growth has always been in proportion 
to the stanchness with which Baptist princi- 
ples have been upheld and practised. So it 
ever has been with all religious bodies. Nothing 
is gained by smoothing off the edges of truth 
and toning down its colors, so that its contrast 
with error may be as slight as possible. On 
the contrary, let the edges remain a bit rough, 
let the colors be heightened, so that the world 
cannot possibly mistake the one for the other, 
and the prospect of the truth gaining accept- 
ance is greatly increased. The history of 
every religious denomination teaches the same 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 83 

lesson : progress depends on loyalty to truth. 
Compromise always means decay. 

The present century has witnessed the most 
rapid change among the Baptists of England 
with regard to the communion. The most 
powerful factor in producing this two-fold de- 
fection was Robert Hall. Starting from pre- 
mises that Socinus would have heartily ap- 
proved, he reached the conclusion that the 
neglect of baptism is to be tolerated by the 
churches as an exercise of Christian liberty (a 
Christian at liberty to disobey Christ [), and 
that sincerity rather than outward obedience 
is the test that the "genius of Christianity ' ' 
proposes. Under the influence of such teach- 
ings, large numbers of Baptist churches became 
' i open. ' ' This change has been followed by 
its logical result — a result inevitable wherever 
" open " communion is adopted and given full 
opportunity to work itself out — the formation 
of churches of mixed membership. In many 
so-called Baptist churches of England the or- 
dinance of baptism is seldom or never admin- 
istered ; Pedobaptists are received to member- 
ship on equal terms with the baptized ; they 
are chosen to office, and even to the pastorate. 
In short, so effectually is the church disguised 
as frequently to be reckoned by both Baptists 
and Independents in their statistics. 



1 84 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Thus far we have considered only the Bap- 
tists of England. A few words must be added 
about Baptists in other parts of the kingdom. 
There are traditions among the Welsh churches 
of an ancient origin, but not much is known 
to show their existence prior to the Common- 
wealth. Since that time Baptists have been, 
perhaps, the most flourishing of the Protestant 
bodies, and among their preachers have been 
such men as Vavasor Powell, Morgan John 
Rhees, Christmas Evans, John Williams, and 
Hugh Jones. These Welsh churches are 
sound in doctrine — though at one time Ar- 
minian teachings made considerable progress 
among them — and are faithful to the discipline 
and order that Baptists have from the first be- 
lieved to be taught in the New Testament. 
Almost to a man they are strict communion- 
ists. 

The Baptist churches in Scotland owe their 
existence mainly to Archibald McLean, origi- 
nally a Presbyterian, then a Glasite or Sande- 
manian, who about 1765 adopted the Baptist 
view of the constitution of the church. From 
many of his Sandemanian notions he never 
fully freed himself, and the Scotch Baptists 
have perpetuated some of these peculiarities, 
insisting on a plurality of elders in each 
church, on the weekly celebration of the 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 85 

Lord's Supper, and the like. The Scotch 
Baptists owe much to the labors of the brothers 
Haldane. Robert Haldane was a layman, a 
man of large wealth and great charities, a stu- 
dent of the Scriptures, and a faithful Christian 
according to his light. James Alexander Hal- 
dane was a minister of great energy and 
eloquence. The Scotch Baptists have had a 
constant and healthful growth, are Calvinistic 
in theology, and most of their churches prac- 
tice strict communion. 

Baptist churches were planted in Ireland 
before 1650, but they have ever found this an 
uncongenial soil ; and after more than two 
centuries of struggle there are but two dozen 
churches of the faith in the island. To have 
produced the illustrious scholar, Alexander 
Carson, is their chief contribution to Baptist 
progress, and one of which a larger body might 
be proud. He was born in County Tyrone, 
in 1766. Early in life he became a be- 
liever in Christ, and later was graduated with 
the first honor at the University of Glasgow. 
He became pastor of a Presbyterian church at 
Tubbermore, Ireland, and while in that serv- 
ice came to see from his study of the original 
Scriptures that the churches of the New Testa- 
ment were congregational, not presbyterial, in 
polity ; and that they were composed of bap- 



1 86 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tized believers only. There were few Baptist 
churches in Ireland, there was no society to 
which he could appeal for support ; of his sal- 
ary of one hundred and forty pounds he re- 
ceived one hundred pounds from the royal 
treasury. If he became a Baptist he must not 
only sever all connection with old friends, but 
risk starvation. He did what he felt to be 
clearly his duty, was baptized, and began to 
preach to such as would listen. He soon 
gathered a church, and lived to see it grow to 
five hundred members, many of whom walked 
from seven to ten miles in order to attend its 
services. 

Dr. Carson was an industrious student, and 
became a great scholar ; but for his inability to 
sign the Confession of Faith he might have 
been professor of Greek in the University of 
Glasgow. His work on baptism was a com- 
plete reply to all the objections that had been 
raised by the ignorant and prejudiced against 
the teaching and practice of Baptists regarding 
this ordinance of Christ. Every contention 
of his has since been amply sustained by the 
scholarship of the world — not by Baptist schol- 
arship alone, but by Pedobaptist. 

The Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, established in 1813, a home missionary 
and social organization, is the most representa- 



FREEDOM AND GROWTH 1 87 

tive body in the United Kingdom. Many of 
the Particular Baptists are members of the 
Union, but the "strict" churches sustain a 
tract and book society in London, and a theo- 
logical school at Manchester. Other theolog- 
ical schools, or " colleges," as the English 
call them, are located at Bristol, Rawdon, 
London (in connection with the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle), Regent's Park, Pontypool, Hav- 
erford-West. The churches also sustain socie- 
ties for Bible translation, the support of aged 
ministers, and the like. In these enterprises 
the Baptists of Scotland and Wales unite with 
their English brethren to a considerable ex- 
tent. 

Besides the General and Particular Baptists, 
there have been and still are several organiza- 
tions in England, holding Baptist principles in 
general, but adding to them some distinguish- 
ing peculiarity of faith or practice. 

The Six-Principle Baptists were so called 
from the stress they laid on the ' ' six princi- 
ples " enumerated in Heb. 6 : 1, 2 : repent- 
ance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands, the 
resurrection of the dead, and eternal life. Of 
these, the fourth is the only one really 
peculiar to this body ; they laying hands on 
all after baptism, as a token of a special im- 
partation of the Spirit. In March, 1690, the 



1 88 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

churches holding these views formed an Asso- 
ciation. This continued with varying fortunes 
for some years ; at its strongest, numbering 
but eleven churches in England, though there 
were others in Wales when the Calvinistic Bap- 
tists withdrew, and the rest of the churches 
were gradually absorbed into the general 
body. 

The Seventh-Day Baptists (so called from 
their observance of the seventh day of the 
week for rest and worship, instead of the first) 
were founded in 1676 by the Rev. Francis 
Bampfield, a graduate of Oxford, and at one 
time prebend of Exeter Cathedral. /This has 
always been a small body, and at the present 
time but one church survives, the Mill Yard, 
in Whitechapel, London. This church was, 
a few years ago, reduced to a membership of 
about half a dozen, and could secure no pas- 
tor of its own faith in England. The property 
being very valuable, special efforts were made 
in behalf of the church, a pastor was sent to 
them from America, and they are now more 
prosperous than for many years before. 



CHAPTER XII 

BAPTISTS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 




HE history of American Baptists nat- 
urally divides into three periods or 
movements. The first coincides 
nearly with the colonial period of our secular 
national history. It is marked by faithful wit- 
ness to the truth on the one hand, and by 
bitter persecution on the other. The second 
period also corresponds with an era of secular 
history, the time of territorial expansion, and. 
is marked by unexampled growth and mission- 
ary activity. (1776-1845.) The third period, 
extending from about the time of the Mexican 
War to our own day, may be called the period 
of evangelism and education. These divisions 
are largely arbitrary, of course, and there are 
no well-marked lines of division, the periods 
designated overlapping each other. The di- 
vision has, however, a certain mnemonic value; 
and as we proceed the characteristics attributed 
to each period will be seen to be justified by 
the facts. 

It has been asserted and also denied that 

189 



I90 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

there were some Baptists among the Puritan 
immigrants. One of the best known of these 
was Hanserd Knollys. Of the details of his 
stay in America little is known save that it was 
barely three years. He arrived at Boston in 
1638, and very soon after became pastor of a 
church at Piscataway (now Dover), N. H. 
There is no evidence that Knollys held Baptist 
views at this time ; he was ordained pastor of 
a Baptist church in London (England) in 1645, 
from which we might perhaps conclude that 
he had been no long time one of that faith 
and order. While he was pastor at Piscata- 
way his church was rent by a dispute regarding 
infant baptism (this we know from an Episco- 
palian visitor to the colony in April, 1641), 
which warrants the conclusion that though 
there were people of Baptist sentiments in the 
church it was not a Baptist church. To escape 
persecution the church in large part removed 
in 1 64 1 to Long Island, and thence to New 
Jersey, where they formed a Baptist church 
(probably in 1689) and gave to it the same 
name the New Hampshire colony had borne. 
This is the story of the origin of the oldest 
Baptist church but one (Middletown, formed 
in 1688) in New Jersey. If we conclude that 
Knollys and his church were not Baptist, then 
the first Baptist church organized in America 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES igi 

was that of Providence. But before speaking 
of that we must consider the previous history 
of its founder. 

Roger Williams was the son of a London 
merchant; was educated at Sutton's Hospital 
and the University of Cambridge, where he 
took his bachelor's degree in 1627. He be- 
came a Separatist, and in 163 1 landed in Bos- 
ton, where he hoped to find greater religious 
freedom. He found the Puritans fully as in- 
tolerant as Laud, and was by no means satisfied 
with the half-way reformation that they were 
disposed to make. He saw the inconsistency 
of the New England theocracy, in which the 
functions of the Church and State were so 
interblended that the identity of each was in 
danger of being lost. He had grasped the 
principle that the Church and the State should 
be entirely separate and independent each of 
the other. It is not at all certain that Wil- 
liams had imbibed these notions from the 
English Baptists, or that he even knew of their 
holding such doctrines. At this time he was 
not, at any rate, an Anabaptist. He found no 
fault with the Congregational doctrine or dis- 
cipline, but denounced the principle of a State 
Church, and upheld the right of soul liberty on 
natural and scriptural grounds alike. 

In spite of his heterodoxy, Williams was 



192 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

called to be minister to the church at Salem, 
where he was highly esteemed for his zeal and 
eloquence. The Salem church had acted 
against the will of the Massachusetts authori- 
ties, and to prevent trouble Williams went for 
a time to Plymouth. He returned to Salem 
as pastor again, but was soon summoned be- 
fore the court in Boston and condemned to 
banishment. The first (and no doubt the 
chief) charge against him was, " That the 
magistrate ought not to punish the breach of 
the first table, otherwise than in such case as 
did disturb the civil peace. ' ' This was also 
stated in the decree of banishment as the 
chief cause, ' ' Whereas, Mr. Roger Williams, 
one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath 
broached and divulged new and dangerous 
opinions against the authority of magistrates. ' ' 
Nothing can be clearer, as a matter of histori- 
cal record, than that the chief cause of the 
banishment of Roger Williams was his teach- 
ing with regard to religious liberty, that the 
magistrate has no right to punish breaches of 
the first table of the law — those command- 
ments, namely, that relate to the worship of 
God. 

After his banishment, Williams made his 
way, in the dead of winter, to Narragansett 
Bay. While at Plymouth he had learned 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 1 93 

something of the Indian dialects, and he was 
kindly received. At what is now Providence 
he founded a settlement, many of his former 
Salem charge removing to this place. The 
original settlers in 1638 entered into a com- 
pact reading thus: "We whose names are 
hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit 
in the town of Providence, do promise to sub- 
mit ourselves in active and passive obedience 
to all such orders or agencies as shall be made 
for the public good of the body in an orderly 
way, by the major consent of the present in- 
habitants, masters of families, incorporated to- 
gether into a township, and such others whom 
they shall admit into the same, only in civil 
things. ' ' A similar agreement was signed in 
1640 ; the principle was embodied in the code 
of laws adopted by the colony in 1647, and 
was finally incorporated in the royal charter 
given by Charles II. in 1663 : "Our royal will 
and pleasure is, that no person within the said 
colony, at any time hereafter, shall be in any 
wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called 
in question, for any differences of opinion in 
matters of religion, and do not actually disturb 
the civil peace of the said colony. ' ' Thus was 
founded the first government in the world, 
whose cornerstone was absolute religious lib- 
erty. 

N 



194 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

It is true that a few other countries had be- 
fore this, and for periods more or less brief, 
tolerated what they regarded as heresy ; but 
this was the first government organized on the 
principle of absolute liberty to all, in such mat- 
ters of belief and practice as did not conflict 
with the peace and order of society, or with 
ordinary good morals. And though this gov- 
ernment was insignificant in point of numbers 
and power, it was the pioneer in a great revo- 
lution, its principle having since become the 
fundamental law of every American State, and 
influenced strongly even the most conservative 
European States. Though he did not originate 
the idea of soul liberty, it was given to Roger 
Williams, in the providence of God, to be its 
standard-bearer in a new world, where it 
should have full opportunity to work itself out, 
and afford by its fruits a demonstration that it 
is of God and not of man. 

Up to this time Williams was not a Baptist ; 
but his continued study of the Scriptures led 
him to the belief that the sprinkling of water 
on an unconscious babe does not constitute 
obedience to the command of our Lord, " Be 
baptized. ' ' Having arrived at this conviction, 
he wished to be baptized ; but in this little col- 
ony, separated from other civilized countries 
by an ocean or a wilderness, where was a 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 1 95 

qualified administrator to be found ? In the 
meantime, other converts to the truth had 
been made, whether by his agency or by in- 
dependent study of the word. They resolved 
to follow the precept and example of Christ in 
the only way possible to them. Some time 
about March, 1639, therefore, Williams bap- 
tized Ezekiel Holliman, who had been a mem- 
ber of his church at Salem ; and thereupon, 
Holliman baptized Williams. Eleven others 
obeyed their Lord in this way, and the first 
Baptist church on American soil was formed. 
There are a number of other instances in the 
history of American Baptists of the formation 
of a church after this manner — the constituent 
members either being ignorant that there were 
other Christians who agreed with them, or 
being so far distant from any other Baptists 
that the procurement of an administrator was 
out of the question. 

Williams was, however, one of the most 
erratic and unstable men of his time ; and a 
few months later he came to the conclusion 
that this baptism by one who had not himself 
been baptized in an orderly manner was not 
valid baptism. He withdrew himself from the 
church, and for the rest of his life was uncon- 
nected with any religious body, calling himself 
a "seeker." He seems to have been misled 



I96 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

by an idea that, if logically carried out, would 
unchurch every church, by making all admin- 
istration of ordinances invalid. 

Whether the present First Baptist Church 
of Providence is the lineal successor of this 
church founded by Roger Williams is a diffi- 
cult historical question, about which a positive 
opinion should be expressed with diffidence. 
Tradition maintains that the line of succession 
has been unbroken ■ but the records to prove 
this are lacking. The facts appear to be that 
the church, in 1652, was divided, a colony 
going out to form a Six-Principle Baptist 
Church : the ' ' Regular ' ' branch became ex- 
tinct shortly afterward, while the Six-Principle 
wing survived. In 1771, through the influ- 
ence of President James Manning, the major- 
ity adopted a Calvinistic creed, whereupon the 
Six-Principle minority seceded. Both branches 
still survive, the former now bearing the title 
of the First Baptist Church of Providence. 

There is another church that disputes with 
this the honor of being the oldest Baptist 
Church in America. John Clarke and others 
settled at Newport in 1639. He too, was of 
Puritan antecedents, and was not a Baptist up 
to this time ; but we soon after find him pastor 
of a Baptist church in Newport, which may 
have been formed in 1639, and was almost 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 1 97 

certainly in existence in 1640, but was reor- 
ganized in 1644. There was a schism in this 
church in 1656, and a second church (Six- 
Principle) was the result. 

In Massachusetts church organizations were 
of later origin. There are from time to time 
records of Anabaptists among the pestilent 
heretics that disturbed the commonwealth, but 
the most eminent instance was Henry Dunster. 
the first president of Harvard College. For 
preaching against infant baptism this learned, 
godly, and zealous man was indicted by the 
grand jury, condemned to suffer a public ad- 
monition, and placed under bonds for good 
behavior, finally being compelled to resign the 
presidency of the college, of which he had 
been the greatest benefactor. Shortly after 
he was arraigned for refusing to have his child 
baptized, but was saved from further persecu- 
tion by death. His example and teaching 
bore fruit later, but what he escaped in the 
way of immediate reward for his steadfast de- 
votion to truth may perhaps be inferred from 
the treatment of John Clarke, the founder of 
the Newport Church, and Obadiah Holmes, 
who was destined to be Clarke's successor. 
While they were spending the Lord' s Day with 
a brother who lived near Lynn, it was con- 
cluded to have religious services in the house. 



I98 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Two constables broke in while Mr. Clarke was 
preaching from Rev. 3 : 10, and the men were 
hauled before the court. For this offense they 
were sentenced to pay, Clarke a fine of ^20, 
and Holmes one of ^30, in default of which 
they were "well whipped." A friend paid 
Clarke's fine, and he was set at liberty whether 
he would or no ; but Holmes was "whipped 
unmercifully ' ' (the phrase is Bancroft' s) in the 
streets of Boston, for the atrocious crime of 
preaching the gospel and of adding thereto the 
denial of infant baptism. 

This happened September 6, 165 1, but so 
far was such severity from stamping out the 
detested heresy that in 1665 a Baptist church 
was organized in Boston. This was not, prop- 
erly speaking, the first Baptist church in the 
colony, for a Welsh church of which John 
Myles was pastor, had emigrated bodily to the 
colony about 1662. At first they established 
themselves at Rehoboth, but in 1667 they 
settled at Swansea, where the church has had 
an uninterrupted existence to this day. This 
church was strongly Calvinistic, but a second 
(Arminian) Swansea church was formed in 
1685. 

The Swansea church, being situated on the 
borders of Rhode Island, was comparatively 
undisturbed ; not so the church in Boston. 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 1 99 

At the time of its organization the Puritan 
churches were torn by the dissensions that 
finally resulted in the adoption of the Half- 
way Covenant ; but, as in all family quarrels, 
both parties to the contest were ready to 
pounce upon any intruder. Such they con- 
sidered this new Baptist church to be, and a 
determined effort was made to suppress it. 
Shortly after its organization the members 
were summoned before the court and ordered 
to desist. They were not the desisting kind r 
however, and persisted in teaching their 
"damnable errors," and holding meetings, 
whereupon nearly all of them were at one time 
or another, and several more than once, im- 
prisoned or fined, or both. Notwithstanding; 
the personal interference of Charles II., the 
persecutions continued, and on one occasion 
the doors of the meeting house were nailed 
up and the members compelled to worship in 
a shed. Finally so much indignation was 
aroused that the magistrates ceased their effort 
to suppress this church ■ and the charter of 
William and Mary, in 1691, granted "liberty 
of conscience to all Christians, except Papists. ' ' 
This secured Baptists in Massachusetts from 
persecution, but not from taxation to support a 
State church. 

The progress of Baptists in all the New 



200 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

England colonies was very slow. In 1682 a 
church was organized at Kittery, Me. , then a 
part of the Massachusetts Colony, but was so 
harried by fines and imprisonments that it was 
broken up. Some of the members removed 
to South Carolina, and in 1684 organized what 
is now the First Baptist Church of Charleston. 
No other Baptist church was organized in 
Maine until 1768. The first Baptists of Con- 
necticut were from Rhode Island, a church 
being formed at Groton in 1705 by some 
■Six-Principle Baptists from Rhode Island. 
Churches at New London (1720), Walling- 
ford (1731), and Stonington, followed at no 
long intervals after. In the other New Eng- 
land colonies Baptist beginnings were consid- 
erably later. 

In the Middle States the conditions of 
growth were, on the whole, more favorable. 
The only persecution experienced was in the 
colony of New York, and that was for a brief 
time under the governorship of Peter Stuy- 
vesant. The Dutch were too hearty lovers of 
religious liberty, and had experienced too 
much of the horrors of the Inquisition, to play 
long the role of persecutors. The choleric and 
tyrannical Peter soon received orders from 
Holland : * ' Let every man remain free, so 
long as he is modest, moderate, his political 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 201 

conduct irreproachable, and so long as he does 
not offend others or oppose the government." 
But before the policy could be thus changed, 
Baptists had suffered considerably, and later 
under the English rule the same difficulty was 
experienced. The first Baptist minister to 
labor in New York City, so far as is known, 
was Rev. William Wickenden, of Providence, 
in 1656 ; and for these labors he was heavily 
fined, but after an imprisonment of some 
months, being too poor to pay the fine, 
was released and banished from the colony. 
Whether he had succeeded in gathering a 
church is uncertain, but if he did, it was soon 
scattered by persecution, for an ordinance of 
1662 imposed a severe fine on anybody who 
should even be present at an illegal conven- 
ticle. 

The next trace of Baptists in this colony is 
at Oyster Bay, L. I., where one William 
Rhodes, a Baptist minister from Rhode Island, 
began to preach and baptize converts about 
1700. By 1724 a church had been organized, 
and Robert Feeks was ordained pastor. Be- 
fore this, however, a Baptist church had been 
organized in Xew York, where Rev. Valentine 
Wightman began to preach about 171 1. One 
of his converts was Nicholas Eyres, a wealthy 
brewer, in whose house the meetings were 



202 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

held. He was baptized in 1714, a church was 
formed, and Eyres soon became its pastor, at 
the same time continuing in business. In 
spite of some persecutions and many discour- 
agements, they continued to flourish until in- 
ternal dissensions wrecked them, and not long 
after 1730 the church became extinct. 

The most important and influential of the 
early Baptist centers was the group of churches 
in the vicinity of Philadelphia. In 1 684 Thomas 
Dungan gathered a church at Cold Spring, Pa. , 
but it became exctinct about 1702. In 1688 
the church at Pennepeck (Lower Dublin) was 
organized. This church, of twelve members 
at the beginning, had as its first pastor Elias 
Keach, son of the well-known Baptist minister 
of London, Benjamin Keach. The First 
Church of Philadelphia was founded in the 
following year, but its members were con- 
nected with the Lower Dublin Church until 
1746, when they were formally constituted a 
separate and independent church. The Welsh 
Tract Church was constituted in 1701. 

The liberal offers of complete religious lib- 
erty in New Jersey drew Baptists to that col- 
ony as early as 1660. The first church organ- 
ized was that at Middletown in 1688, composed 
mainly of those who had fled from persecution 
in New York and other colonies. Piscataway 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 203 

(1689), Cohansey (1690), Cape May (1712),. 
and Hopewell (1715), were the next to follow. 
Congregations were also gathered at Salem, 
Burlington, Scotch Plains, and other places, 
that in later years were constituted separate 
churches. 

All of these churches were in intimate fel- 
lowship with the Philadelphia group. For their 
mutual convenience and edification, almost 
from their origin, a custom grew up of holding 
1 ' general meetings ' ' from time to time for the 
ministry of the word and the gospel ordinances. 
From being held once a year, these meetings- 
came to be semi-annual, in the months of May 
and September. These were for many years 
what their name implied, general meetings, 
being attended by as many as could make it 
convenient, and were wholly devotional and 
evangelistic. In 1707 the meeting was for the 
first time a delegated body, five churches 
appointing delegates, and this is the beginning 
of the Philadelphia Association. As this body 
increased in age and strength it attracted to 
itself all the Baptist churches within traveling 
distance of it, having as members churches in 
Southern New York and Virginia. Its adop- 
tion of a strongly Calvinistic Confession in 
1742 (or possibly earlier) was a turning-point 
in the history of American Baptists, as it 



204 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ensured the prevalence of that type of theol- 
ogy. Up to this time the Arminian Baptists 
had been the stronger, especially in New Eng- 
land. The Philadelphia Association speedily 
became the leading body among American 
Baptists — a position it has not wholly lost to 
this day. Pretty much everything good in our 
history, from 1700 to 1850, maybe traced to 
its initiative or active co-operation. 

Baptist beginnings in the South, with the 
exception (already noted) of South Carolina, 
were less early. In Maryland, in spite of ex- 
ceptional liberty, but two churches had been 
formed prior to 1772, and to this day the 
Baptist strength there is less than in any other 
Southern State. In neighboring Virginia, 
where the Episcopal Church was established 
by law and Baptists were persecuted with ex- 
ceptional severity, they throve from the first. 
In 1 7 14, Baptists emigrated from England 
and settled in the southeastern part of the 
State ; others came from Maryland and occu- 
pied the northwestern part. Traces of Bap- 
tists in North Carolina are found as early as 
1695, but the oldest church seems to date only 
to 1727. Further details regarding early Bap- 
tist history are hardly possible in a narrative 
like this. Enough has been said to show in 
what manner the early churches were founded, 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 205 

how they were made to bear great burdens. 
and persecutions, and how, in spite of all, the 
good providence of God gave them increase 
and favor in the sight of men. 

During the first century of their history, 
American Baptists did not escape the effect of 
that spirit of worldliness that nearly paralyzed 
the churches of the ' ' standing order. ' ' They 
were firm in adherence to the true scriptural 
principle that the church should be composed 
of the regenerate only, but they lived in com- 
munities where it was hard even to get a 
hearing for this idea. The New England com- 
munity was a theocracy, and the privileges of 
citizenship were enjoyed only by those who 
were members of the church. The theory of 
imperium and sacerdotium was not more firmly 
insisted on, and not half so consistently fol- 
lowed, in the relations between the mediaeval 
Church and the Holy Roman Empire, as in 
the connection of Church and State in New 
England. They were like the obverse and 
reverse of a coin, two aspects of one indivisible 
entity. The certain result of such a polity in 
modern Christianity, as in ancient Judaism, 
must be to corrupt the spiritual body, to de- 
stroy all distinction between regenerate and 
unregenerate. The adoption of the Half-way 
Covenant, in 1662, was at once the natural 



206 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

result and an aggravation of the state of 
things that had come to pass. This covenant 
provided that those baptized in infancy were 
to be regarded as members of the church to 
which their parents belonged, although not to 
be admitted to the communion without evi- 
dence of regeneration. Such persons were 
allowed to offer their children for baptism, 
provided they publicly professed assent to the 
doctrine of faith, and were not scandalous in 
life. It was not long before ministers declared 
that sanctification was not a qualification for 
the Lord's Supper, but saw in it a converting 
ordinance and a means of regeneration. Con- 
sequently, persons who had been baptized in 
infancy, and were not charged with scandalous 
conduct or heresy, were regarded as entitled 
to full communion with the church. 

Against this worldly condition of the church 
a reaction was certain to come. It manifested 
itself in the Great Awakening that began at 
Northampton, in 1734, under the preaching 
of Jonathan Edwards, and gradually extended 
throughout the towns of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut. The visit of Whitefield to this 
country in 1739, gave a new impulse to this 
revival of true religion, extending it far beyond 
the bounds of New England. With this sec- 
ond revival began a new era in the spiritual 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 20J 

life of American Christians. The leaven did 
not spread without opposition, and among 
Baptists two parties were formed — the ' ' Reg- 
ulars, ' ' who adhered to the old ways and dis- 
paraged revivals, and the ' •' New Lights ' ' or 
"Separates," who adopted the methods of 
Whitefield. The literature of the times is full 
of this controversy, and shows that the newer 
and more scriptural method of preaching did 
not win its way to its present general accept- 
ance without bitter opposition. 

Nevertheless, from this time the growth of 
Baptists became rapid. In Massachusetts, for 
example, there had been only eight Baptist 
churches organized before the Great Awaken- 
ing; between 1740 and 1775, when the war of 
Revolution began, twenty-seven new churches 
had been formed, and in 1784 the total 
number had increased to seventy-three, with 
a membership of three thousand and sev- 
enty-three. Extension to the regions beyond 
was also begun. The first church in New 
Hampshire was organized at Newton, in 
1775, and by 1784 there were twenty-five 
churches and four hundred and seventy-six 
members. Baptist history in Vermont begins 
with three churches about 1780 — that State 
having been settled later — and within the next 
decade thirty-two churches were planted there, 



208 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and the total membership reached one thou- 
sand six hundred. In 1784, the entire strength 
of New England Baptists was one hundred and 
fifty-one churches and four thousand seven 
hundred and eighty-three members. Of 
course, these figures are only approximate, 
though as to the number of churches they are 
probably very nearly accurate. 

The most rapid growth, however, was in the 
South. In 1754 a company of the "New 
Lights" from New England settled in Vir- 
ginia, and throve. The division between 
them and the ' ' Regulars ' ' became an open 
schism here, that for a time seriously inter- 
fered with the progress of the denomination, 
but in 1787 a union was effected. In 1790, 
the churches were said to be two hundred and 
ten, and their members twenty thousand. In 
no colony were Baptists more oppressed. In 
1629 the Assembly forbade any minister lack- 
ing Episcopal ordination to officiate in the 
colony, and this rule was enforced by severe 
penalties up to the Revolution. Baptists were 
also taxed for the support of the Episcopal 
Church and their property was seized and sold 
to pay such taxes. At length, however, they 
found champions in such men as Thomas Jef- 
ferson and Patrick Henry; the latter, though 
a member of the Established Church, being 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 209 

too genuine a lover of liberty to have any part 
in persecution. In 1798, the Legislature re- 
pealed all laws vesting property in any relig- 
ious sect, as well as penalties for dissent, thus 
placing all religious bodies on an equal footing 
before the law. 

One evidence of the progress of Baptists 
after the Great Awakening is the number of 
Associations. We know that the Arminian 
Baptists of New England had a ' ' yearly meet- 
ing " some time before 1729 ; this, therefore, 
was the second body of this kind to be organ- 
ized. In 1 75 1, four churches formed the 
South Carolina Association, and in 1767 the 
Warren, of Rhode Island, was formed. From 
these three, as nuclei, the formation of Associa- 
tions went on rapidly, until by 1800 there were 
forty-six Associations, of which twenty were in 
the Southern Atlantic States and seven beyond 
the Alleghanies — five of these last being in 
Kentucky. 

Logically, the story of another movement 
is connected with the Great Awakening ; 
though, chronologically, it developed itself 
fully a generation later. Just as the Reforma- 
tion of Luther produced the counter-reforma- 
tion of Loyola, so the Edwards-White field re- 
vival produced the Unitarian reaction ; pro- 
duced in the sense of precipitating, not in that 



2IO SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of original causation. Unitarianism had, for 
some time, been in solution in New England, 
and the revival caused it to crystallize into visi- 
ble form. What had been a tendency became 
a movement ; a mode of thinking became a 
propaganda; the esoteric doctrines of a few 
became the openly avowed basis of a sect. We 
can only glance at this interesting topic as we 
pass by, its place in this survey of Baptist his- 
tory being justified merely by the fact that 
the New England Baptists stood as a chief bul- 
wark against the heresy. In 1800 two of the 
six orthodox churches left in Boston were Bap- 
tist, while eight Congregational churches and 
one Episcopal church had gone over bodily to 
Unitarianism. Samuel Stillman and Thomas 
Baldwin were the pastors of these two churches 
during these troublous times, and no two men 
did more than they to resist false doctrine by 
preaching the truth. Indeed, throughout New 
England it is said that not one Baptist church 
forsook the faith, and not one Baptist minister 
of note became a Unitarian. This stanch 
orthodoxy of the Baptists had a profound ef- 
fect on the history of American Christianity, 
as will be pointed out in another connection. 

At the beginning of the Revolution, Amer- 
ican Baptists numbered less than ten thousand, 
but even approximate figures are lacking. In 



BAPTISTS IN AMERICAN COLONIES 211 

1792, according to Dr. Rufus Babcock, there 
were four hundred and seventy-one churches, 
four hundred and twenty-four ministers, and 
thirty-five thousand one hundred and one 
members. By 1800 they had increased to an 
estimated number of one hundred thousand. 
In 1850 the numbers had risen to eight hun- 
dred and fifteen thousand two hundred and 
twelve, of whom six hundred and eighty-six 
thousand eight hundred and seven were ' ' Reg- 
ular " Baptists. In other words, in 1776 Bap- 
tists were about one to two hundred and sixty- 
four of the population; in 1800 they were one 
to fifty- three, and in 1850 they had become 
one in twenty-nine. 

If these figures are substantially accurate, 
and for good reasons they are believed to 
be, the period of greatest actual and relative 
advance among American Baptists was the 
last quarter of the eighteenth century. Sev- 
eral causes contributed to this result, chief 
among them being the granting of religious 
liberty in all the States, the missionary activity 
of the pioneer preachers, and the harmony 
between the democratic spirit of the people 
and the congregational polity of the Baptist 
churches. Though subsequent growth has not 
reached these unexampled figures, it has con- 
tinually exceeded the rate at which population 



212 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

increases, and that in spite of the immense in- 
flux of foreign peoples, on many of whom Bap- 
tists have not yet succeeded in making any 
perceptible impression. 



CHAPTER XIII 

BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES THE PERIOD 

OF EXPANSION 




HE second period in the history of 
American Baptists discloses to the 
student three strongly marked char- 
acteristics : i. A great increase in missionary 
fervor. 2. The gradual inception of vast mis- 
sionary enterprises. 3. An unexampled rapid- 
ity of growth in both numbers and spiritual 
power. As eddies in these great currents we 
find several controversies, caused by sectional 
and doctrinal differences that at times threat- 
ened the very existence of the denomination. 
With the attainment of civil liberty came a 
spirit that made men see in religious persecu- 
tion the tyranny and shame that it was. Vir- 
ginia led the way and the other States rapidly 
followed. The spirit of intolerance lingered 
longest in New England, and it was not until 
1833 that the last remnant of proscriptive laws 
was swept from the statute book of Massachu- 
setts. And even so good and wise and great a 
man as Lyman Beecher thought the bottom 
had dropped out of things when his State 

213 



214 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

(Connecticut) no longer compelled his unwill- 
ing Baptist neighbor to contribute to his sup- 
port. 

The disabilities removed, the Baptist churches 
grew apace. The secret of this growth was in- 
cessant evangelization. There were no mis- 
sionary societies, national, State, or even local. 
Some of the Associations did a work of this 
kind. Thus soon after the organization of the 
South Carolina Association, they sent North 
for a missionary preacher, and secured the 
Rev. John Gano, afterward pastor of the First 
Baptist Church of New York, and a man of 
note in his day. His labors in the interior of 
the State resulted in the establishment of sev- 
eral churches and the organization of the Con- 
garee Association. But for the most part this 
evangelization was the work of men who were 
not sent forth, but went forth to preach in 
obedience to a divine call. Many Baptist 
preachers spent at least a part of their lives, if 
not the whole of them, as itinerant preachers ; 
and to their labors was due the growth of Bap- 
tist churches in the closing quarter of the 
eighteenth century. 

As the population extended over the Alle- 
ghanies into the new regions of the great West, 
the missionary zeal of the churches kept step 
with the colonizing enterprise of the people. 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 215 

Without societies or other means of organizing 
their scanty resources of men and money, 
they pushed out boldly into the regions be- 
yond. Many Baptists from North Carolina 
and Virginia were among the first settlers of 
Kentucky and Tennessee, and in the latter 
State their churches were organized as early as 
1765. By 1790 there were eighteen churches 
and eight hundred and eighty-nine members 
in the State. In 1782 Baptist churches were 
formed in Kentucky; and in 1790 there were 
forty-two churches and three thousand and 
ninety-five members. Baptists were among 
the first to enter Ohio as settlers and religious 
workers, a church having been organized at 
Columbia in 1790, and the Miami Association 
being organized in 1797. In Illinois, Baptists 
from Virginia were the first Protestants to enter 
and possess the land, a number settling there 
not later than 1786. In the following year a 
Kentucky pastor preached there, but the first 
church was not formed until May, 1796, at 
New Design, St. Clair County. 

Many men of God went forth into this wil- 
derness not knowing where they should find a 
night's lodging or their next meal, willing to 
suffer untold privations if they might only 
point some to the Lamb of God. It is impos- 
sible to estimate too highly or to praise too 



2l6 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

warmly the services of these men of strong 
faith and good works. Their hardships were 
such as we of the present day can hardly im- 
agine. They traveled from little settlement to 
settlement on horseback, with no road save 
an Indian trail or blazed trees, fording streams 
over which no bridges had been built, exposed 
to storms, frequently sleeping where night 
found them, often prostrated by fevers or 
wasted by malaria, but indomitable still. If 
they did not wander "in sheepskins and goat- 
skins," like ancient heroes of faith, they wore 
deerskins ; and homespun took the place of 
sackcloth. Their dwelling was "all out-o'- 
doors. ' ' Living in the plainest manner, shar- 
ing all the hardships of a pioneer people, the 
circuit preacher labored in a parish that, as one 
of them said, " took in one-half of creation, 
for it had no boundary on the west. ' ' One of 
them writes in 1805 : "Every day I travel I 
have to swim through creeks or swamps, and I 
am wet from head to feet, and some days from 
morning to night I am dripping with water. . . 
I have rheumatism in all my joints. . . What 
I have suffered in body and mind my pen is 
not able to communicate to you. But this I 
I can say : While my body is wet with water 
and chilled with cold my soul is filled with 
heavenly fire, and I can say with St. Paul : 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 2\J 

'But none of these things move me, neither 
count I my life dear unto myself, so that I 
might finish my course with joy.' " 

In general, the preacher was kindly received, 
often with tears of joy. The people who were 
running a neck-and-neck race with death by 
starvation or freezing had not much to give 
the itinerant minister. Even to offer him food 
and shelter meant sacrifice, but in nearly every 
case he was welcome to his share of whatever 
comforts the pioneer family possessed. In the 
wilderness, like Paul, he passed through perils 
many — perils by the way, perils from savage 
beasts, perils from the savage Indians, perils 
from godless and degraded men hardly less 
savage than either beast or Indian. But God, 
who closed the mouths of the lions, was with 
his servant, the pioneer preacher. Many died 
prematurely of privation and disease in this 
hard life, but there is no record of one who 
died of violence. 

The houses of worship in which these 
preachers held their services were generally 
God's own temples — the woods and prairies. 
Their libraries consisted of a Bible and a hymn 
book, carried in their saddle bags. They did 
not read polished essays from a manuscript, 
as their degenerate successors so often do. 
The rough backwoodsman had no use, as he 



2l8 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

phrased it, " for a preacher who couldn' t shoot 
without a rest. " The preaching was of a 
rough-and-ready sort, not always scrupulous of 
the Queen's English, strongly tinged with the 
good, old doctrines of grace — eminently evan- 
gelistic, to use our modern phrase, and was 
richly blessed of God to the conversion of their 
hearers. These men, uncouth as they would 
seem now, unwelcome as they would be to the 
pulpit of any fashionable Baptist church in our 
cities, led multitudes to the cross of Christ, 
founded churches in all the new communities 
of the West, laid the foundations of denomi- 
national institutions, on which a magnificent 
superstructure has since been built. Let us 
honor as he deserves the pioneer preacher of 
the West. We who have entered into the 
labors of such men are noble indeed if we are 
worthy to unloose the latchet of their shoes. 
Time would fail to tell of such men as John M. 
Peck, the apostle of the Mississippi Valley ; 
of Ebenezer Loomis, the Michigan evangelist ; 
of James Delaney, the Wisconsin pioneer ; of 
Amory Gale, who preached over one hundred 
thousand miles of Minnesota; of " Father' ' 
Taggart, of Nebraska ; and of scores of others 
equally worthy of undying honor. Their rec- 
ord is on high ; their names are written in the 
book of God's remembrance. "And they 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 2ig 

shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that 
day when I made up my jewels." 

But a still greater opportunity was before 
American Baptists. When Thomas Jefferson 
became president, in 1801, the United States 
included an area of eight hundred and twenty- 
seven thousand eight hundred and forty-four 
square miles, all to the east of the Mississippi 
River. In 1803 Jefferson, with noble incon- 
sistency setting aside all his past record as a 
strict constructionist of the Constitution, bought 
from France for fifteen million dollars a strip 
of territory that more than doubled the area 
of his country. This Louisiana purchase, as 
it was called, added to the national domain 
one million one hundred and seventy-one 
thousand nine hundred and thirty-one square 
miles. From this territory were afterward 
formed the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mis- 
souri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, the 
two Dakotas, Montana, and the Indian Terri- 
tory (including Oklahoma), besides a consid- 
erable part of the States of Minnesota and 
Colorado. 

Settlement of this new region necessarily 
proceeded very slowly for some time. The 
Indians were hostile and threatening on the 
north, and the possession of the southern part 
was menaced by the British. The energies of 



220 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the country were too much absorbed by the 
war of 1812, the struggle to preserve the inde- 
pendence so hard won in the Revolution, to 
have much surplus energy for colonization. 
At the battle of Tippecanoe, in 1811, General 
Harrison broke the power of the Indians, who 
were never formidable again east of the Missis- 
sippi ; while ' ' Old Hickory, ' ' by his defeat of 
the British at New Orleans in 181 5, forever 
assured the integrity of our possessions against 
any foreign attack. Peace soon came to crown 
these victories, and then the great westward 
movement of population began. In a half 
century the face of this continent was trans- 
formed as no similar expanse on the earth' s sur- 
face was ever transformed in so short a time. 

The unsystematic system that had been so 
undoubtedly effective for a time was outgrown ; 
something else must be devised. Satisfactory 
provision for the permanent work of Home 
Missions was first made in 1832, when the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society was 
organized. From the first its headquarters 
have been in New York City, but its motto, 
" North America for Christ," indicates that 
no local interests have ever been permitted to 
circumscribe its sympathies or activities. Its 
first work was in the Mississippi Valley. This 
was the far West of that day ; the outposts of 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 221 

civilization were just beginning to push beyond 
that barrier of nature. Here a great battle 
was to be fought. The population of the 
Louisiana purchase was almost exclusively Ro- 
man Catholic. We can see now that the ques- 
tion of the supremacy of this continent, for 
which the Protestant Saxon race and the Cath- 
olic French race long contended, was fought 
out and settled on the plains of Abraham, in 
1759, when Wolfe defeated Montcalm and 
captured the stronghold of Quebec. But this 
was not so clear at the time. Rome is an an- 
tagonist that does not know when she is beaten. 
She recognized, indeed, that she had received 
a severe check in the New World, but could 
not believe it a final defeat. She dreamed that 
in the valley of the Mississippi, with the great 
advantage she already had, not only ail her 
losses might be regained, but a victory might 
be won far surpassing her apparent defeat. 
And who shall say that this was all dream ? As 
we look back it seems a not unreasonable fore- 
cast, from the realization of which only a 
merciful Providence saved us. The fruits of 
Wolfe's victory might have been lost but for 
the fact that just at the critical hour God raised 
up such missionary and evangelizing agencies as 
the American Baptist Home Mission Society. 
Into this new field the society moved, at 



222 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

first with but slender resources, yet with a 
dauntless spirit. It became the great pioneer 
agency of the denomination. One of its first 
missionaries was the Rev. Allen B. Freeman, 
who in 1833 gathered the First Baptist Church 
of Chicago — the first church of the denomi- 
nation to be established in what was then the 
Northwest. Call the roll of the great cities 
of the West — St. Paul, Minneapolis, Omaha, 
Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland 
— what would the Baptist cause have been in 
them but for this society? In nearly all of 
these cities, not only was the first Baptist 
church established by this organization, but 
most of the Baptist churches existing in them 
to-day owe their birth and continued existence 
to its fostering care. Call the roll of our great 
Western commonwealths — Illinois, Wisconsin, 
Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, 
Kansas, Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Mon- 
tana, California, Oregon, Washington — in every 
one of these this society has been the pioneer 
missionary agency of the denomination by 
from two to twenty years. 

In 1845 the society began the evangelizing 
of the far West by the sending of Rev. Ezra 
Fisher and Rev. Hezekiah Johnson from Iowa 
to Oregon. Their hardships on the way were 
great, but they reached their destination safely, 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 223 

and the foundations of Baptist churches were 
speedily laid in that State. In 1848, before 
the discovery of gold in California was an- 
nounced in the East, Rev. O. C. Wheeler was 
sent to San Francisco, via the Isthmus of Pan- 
ama ; and later Rev. H. W. Read was sent 
overland to the same destination ; but on reach- 
ing New Mexico he was so impressed with the 
importance and destitution of that field that 
he asked and obtained the consent of the Board 
to remain there. In the other States, mission 
work was begun as fast as men and means 
could be found to extend operations westward. 
In Kansas the society had a missionary as early 
as 1854, and one was sent into Nebraska in 
1856. The troublous times just before and 
during the Civil War brought this advance to 
a temporary standstill, but in 1864 it was again 
resumed, entrance having been made in that 
year into two States — Dakota and Colorado. 
In 1870 Washington and Wyoming were occu- 
pied, and in 187 1 Montana and Utah. 

What have been the results On the denomi- 
national growth ? They are difficult to com- 
pute. In the year 1832, when the Home 
Mission Society was organized, there were 
in its peculiar field — the West — nine hundred 
churches, a large part of them feeble and pas- 
torless, since there were but six hundred min- 



224 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

isters, and the total membership was but 
thirty- two thousand. In 1896 the Baptist de- 
nomination in that field, and in the farther 
West that is still more distinctively missionary 
territory, had seven thousand four hundred and 
seventy churches and five, hundred and eighty- 
one thousand members. 

Missions are also supported in Mexico. The 
society has a church edifice fund, from which 
gifts and loans are made to churches in the 
newer parts of the country. By an expendi- 
ture of about fifty thousand dollars annually, 
this fund secures to the denomination property 
worth two hundred thousand dollars. The 
society has also done a valuable educational 
work in the South and the Indian Territory, 
where it maintains a large number of institu- ' 
tions of academic and collegiate grade. The 
value of the property possessed by these 
schools, or held by the society for their main- 
tenance, closely approximates a million dollars. 

Though the work of home missions was thus 
first in point of time and in pressing necessity, 
it was not the first to be organized on a per- 
manent basis. Long before this had come 
about, a clear providential summons had come 
to Baptists to fulfill the Great Commission, 
and preach the gospel to every creature. This 
was accomplished through Adoniram Judson, 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 22 5 

the son of a Congregational minister of Massa- 
chusetts, who was educated at Brown Uni- 
versity and Andover Theological Seminary. 
Through the influence of Judson and some 
other students at Andover, the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 
was organized; and in 1812 several mission- 
aries were sent out to India, among whom 
were Adoniram Judson and his wife, Ann 
Hasseltine Judson. Their destination was 
Calcutta, where they knew some English Bap- 
tist missionaries to be laboring. It seemed 
probable to the Judsons that they would be 
called upon to defend their own doctrines and 
practice in the matter of baptism against these 
Baptists, and Mr. Judson began to study the 
question on shipboard with his usual ardor. 

The more he sought to find in the Scriptures 
authority for the baptism of infants and for 
sprinkling as baptism, the more convinced was 
he that neither could be found there. Un- 
known to him, Mrs. Judson was also much 
troubled. Finally both became convinced 
that the Baptist position was right, that they 
had never been baptized, and that duty to 
Christ demanded that they should be baptized. 
Accordingly, on their arrival at Calcutta, they 
sought out the Baptist missionaries, told their 
experience and were immersed by Rev. William 



226 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Ward, September 6. Shortly after, Luther 
Rice, another appointee of the same Board, 
who had sailed by another ship, landed at Cal- 
cutta, having undergone a precisely similar ex- 
perience. He too was baptized. The ques- 
tion then arose, what were they to do ? By 
this act, though they had obeyed Christ, they 
had cut themselves off from connection with 
the Board that had sent them forth, and were 
strangers in a strange land, without means of 
future support. It was resolved that Mr. Rice 
should return to America, tell the Baptists 
there what had happened, and throw the new 
mission upon them — for of abandoning the 
work of preaching the gospel to the heathen, 
to which they felt that God had called them, 
the Judsons seem never to have thought. 

Mr. Rice reached Boston in September, 
1813, and told his story. The Baptists of 
Boston and vicinity at once became responsible 
for the support of the Judsons, but they saw 
that the finger of Providence pointed to a 
larger undertaking than this. They advised 
Mr. Rice to visit the Baptist churches at large 
and try to interest them in this work. To 
their honor be it written, the Baptists of that 
day did not hesitate for an instant. They 
were poor and scattered, and the country was 
just beginning its second struggle for inde- 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 2 27 

pendence. No time could have been less 
propitious for the launching of a new enter- 
prise, especially one projected on so large a 
scale as this. But our fathers were men of 
faith and prayer and good works ; they obeyed 
the voice of God and went forward. With 
great enthusiasm they responded to the ap- 
peals of Mr. Rice ; considering their relative 
poverty, the contributions were liberal ; mis- 
sionary societies sprang up all over the land ; 
the denomination for the first time had a com- 
mon cause, and became conscious of its unity 
and its power. 

The need was at once felt of some one cen- 
tral organization that would jinite these forces 
in the missionary cause, and after mutual 
counsel among the officers of several existing 
bodies, a meeting was called for the organiza- 
tion of a national society. This meeting was 
held at Philadelphia in May, 1814, and resulted 
in the formation of "The General Convention 
of the Baptist Denomination in the United 
States for Foreign Missions." The Constitu- 
tion declared the object to be to direct "the 
energies of the whole denomination in one 
sacred effort for sending the glad tidings of 
salvation to the heathen, and to nations desti- 
tute of pure gospel light." From the circum- 
stances of its meeting once in three years, this 



228 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

body was popularly known as the ? ' Triennial 
Convention/' though that was never its offi- 
cial title. It continued to be the organ of the 
denomination for its foreign work until 1845. 
The Baptist churches of the entire country 
were represented in its organization and con- 
duct and support. Its first president was 
Richard Furman, of South Carolina. There 
was, however, considerable opposition, not by 
any means confined to any one section, to this 
new missionary movement. Many Baptist 
churches held a form of Calvinistic doctrine 
that was paralyzing to all evangelical effort. 
Their doctrine of the divine decrees was prac- 
tically fatalism : when God was ready to con- 
vert the heathen, he would do so without 
human intervention ; and to send out mission- 
aries for this purpose was an irreverent med- 
dling with the divine purposes, as reprehensi- 
ble as Uzzah's rash staying of the ark of God 
when it seemed about to fall. Consequently, 
from this time onw T ard the Baptists of the 
United States became divided into two par- 
ties, missionary Baptists and anti-mission Bap- 
tists. The latter were at first equal, if not 
superior, in numbers to the former ; in some 
districts the anti-mission Baptists were largely 
in the majority. But a doctrine and practice 
so discouraging of practical effort for the salva- 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 2 29 

tion of men produced its legitimate results in a 
generation or two, by reducing the number of 
anti-mission Baptists to nearly or quite the 
vanishing point in the greater part of the 
United States. Remnants of the sect still sur- 
vive, and in a few Southern States the churches 
are still quite strong. Their total number has 
for years been given at about forty thousand in 
denominational statistics, but the census of 
1890 states their total membership as one 
hundred and twenty-one thousand three hun- 
dred and forty-seven. Though they long 
since practically disappeared from the North- 
ern States, they have a few churches in almost 
every State of the Union, except the newer 
ones beyond the Mississippi. 

The first mission established by the Gen- 
eral Convention was in Burma, whither the 
Judsons went in 181 3, because the intolerance 
of the British East India Company denied 
them the privilege of laboring in India, the 
land of their first choice. The work began at 
Rangoon in July, 18 13 but it was not until 
July, 18 1 9, that the first convert, Moung Nau, 
was baptized. The war between England and 
Burma broke out just as the work began to 
prosper, and for three years he and his de- 
voted wife suffered incredible tortures of body 
and spirit. After the war the mission came 



23O SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

under British protection and prospered. Dr. 
Judson continued to preach and teach until his 
death, and gave the Burmans the Scriptures 
in their native tongue. The work in Burma 
has not been so prosperous among the Bur- 
mans as among the Karens, a people living in 
the hilly districts. Among them the gospel 
has made great progress from the establish- 
ment of the mission by Rev. George Dana 
Boardman, in 1828. A mission in Arracanwas 
established in 1835, and one in Siam in 1833. 
In 1834 Rev. William Dean began a mission 
at Bangkok among the Chinese of that city. 
In 1842 Mr. Dean was obliged to leave on ac- 
count of his health, and he began a mission 
in Hong Kong. A mission was established in 
Assam in 1836, and in 182 1 two Negro mis- 
sionaries were sent out to Liberia. These 
were practically all of the missions among the 
heathen begun and carried on during the his- 
tory of the General Convention. Several 
European missions, however, belong to this 
period — the missions to France, Germany, 
Denmark, and Greece. Of these, something 
more will be said in another chapter. 

These beginnings of foreign missionary work 
by American Baptists were largely blessed in 
the extension of the work among the heathen ; 
but it may be doubted whether the reflex 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 23 I 

blessing on the Baptist churches of this coun- 
try was not the larger blessing of the two. 
Never was the Scripture better illustrated than 
in the history of Baptists in the United States : 
" There is that scattereth and yet increase th ; 
there is that withholdeth more than is meet, 
but it tendeth to poverty. ' ' 



CHAPTER XIV 

BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES THE DAYS 

OF CONTROVERSY 




OR a full generation all the foreign 
mission work of American Baptists 
was done through their General 
Convention, but in 1844 the differences be- 
tween the Northern and Southern churches, 
growing out of the question of slavery, cul- 
minated in a separation. Slavery had been 
originally common to all the colonies, and the 
people of New England had done their full 
share toward introducing and perpetuating 
the system. Perhaps the eyes of Northern 
people were more readily opened to the in- 
iquities of slavery because the system never 
proved profitable in the North. Whether 
owing to this or other causes, an anti-slavery 
sentiment spread through the Northern States 
to an extent sufficient to induce them to eman- 
cipate their slaves early in the present century. 
About the year 1825 the new anti-slavery sen- 
timent in the North, demanding immediate 
emancipation, became prominent, and from 
232 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 233 

January 1. 1831, when William Lloyd Garri- 
son issued his first number of the i " Liberator, ' ' 
this sentiment rapidly spread. It met with 
much opposition, and soon the Garrisonian 
anti-slavery agitation placed itself in direct 
antagonism to the Christian churches of the 
North. Nevertheless, there was a growing sen- 
timent among the churches, and especially 
among the Baptist churches, that a Christian 
man ought not to be a holder of slaves. This 
agitation became the cause of division even 
among the Baptist churches of the Northern 
States, and naturally threatened the peace and 
unity of the denomination as a whole. 

Differences of opinion regarding the slavery 
question appear in the Minutes of the General 
Convention for several years before the final 
break. These appeared to reach the culmi- 
nating point in the year 1844. The question 
of the relation to slavery of Baptist churches 
represented in the Convention came up during 
the meeting of that year for thorough discus- 
sion, and after careful consideration the Con- 
vention almost unanimously adopted the fol- 
lowing : 

Resolved, That in co-operating together as members 
in this Convention in the work of foreign missions, we 
disclaim all sanctions either expressed or implied, 
whether of slavery or anti-slaverv ; but as individuals 



234 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

we are free to express and to promote elsewhere our 
views on these subjects in a Christian manner and 
spirit. 

This certainly was the only possible method 
of treating the question if denominational ' 
unity was to be preserved. Had the terms of 
that resolution been fairly adhered to, it is 
possible that the peace and unity of the Bap- 
tist churches might have been preserved, at 
least until the outbreak of the civil war. But 
its terms were not respected. Up to this time 
the rule for the appointment of missionaries by 
the Board of the Convention was to approve 
"such persons only as are in full communion 
with some church in our denomination, and 
who furnish satisfactory evidence of genuine 
piety, good talents, and fervent zeal, for the Re- 
deemer' s cause." This was certainly the only 
proper rule to be adopted by an institution 
representing all the Baptist churches of the 
United States, the only rule under which ail 
those churches could unite in its support. 
The Executive Board had received a mandate 
from the Convention in 1844^0 preserve this 
attitude of neutrality. Nevertheless, in the 
following December, in response to a ques- 
tion addressed to it by a Southern body, the 
Executive Board made the following reply, 
which was, in fact, the adoption of a new rule : 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 235 

' ' If any one who should offer himself for a 
missionary, having slaves, should insist on re- 
taining them as his property, we could not ap- 
point him. One thing is certain, we can never 
be a party to an arrangement which would im- 
ply approbation of slavery. ' ' 

No doubt the Board were actuated by con- 
scientious motives in making such a reply, but 
it is easy now to see that they misjudged their 
duties as Christian men. They were the agents 
of the body that appointed them, and were 
under moral obligation to obey its commands. 
In making this rule they flagrantly disobeyed. 
If they felt as Christian men that obedience to 
the higher law of God forbade them to carry 
out their instructions, their honorable course 
was to resign. There is no adequate defense 
of their conduct in thus disobeying the plain 
mandate they had received from the Conven- 
tion only a few months before. At its meet- 
ing in April, 1845, the American Baptist Home 
Mission Society, moved by a similar conflict of 
sentiment and the majority of its attendants 
being Northern men, adopted resolutions de- 
claring it to be ' ' expedient that the members 
now forming the society should hereafter act 
in separate organizations at the South and at 
the North in promoting the objects which were 
originally contemplated by the society. ' ' These 



236 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

two acts on the part of Northern Baptists ren- 
dered the maintenance of denominational 
unity impossible. 

In May, 1845, in response to the call issued 
fay the Virginia Foreign Mission Society, three 
hundred and ten delegates from the Southern 
churches met at Augusta, Ga. , and organized 
the Southern Baptist Convention. Its consti- 
tution was precisely that of the original General 
Baptist Convention : "For eliciting, combin- 
ing, and directing, the energies of the whole de- 
nomination in one sacred effort for the propa- 
gation of the gospel." It established two 
Boards, one for foreign missions located in 
Richmond, and one for domestic missions at 
Marion, Ala. Since that time the Southern 
Baptist churches have done their missionary 
work through this organization. During the 
civil war the need was greatly felt of some 
means of effectually prosecuting Sunday-school 
work and a Sunday-school Board was estab- 
lished at Greenville, S. C. In 1872 this was 
consolidated with the Home Mission Board. 

The division thus caused has remained until 
the present time. There have been occasional 
propositions for a reunion between Northern 
and Southern Baptists, but they have met with 
little favor either North or South. The opin- 
ion has been general that more and better 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 237 

work is accomplished between the two organi- 
zations than could be accomplished by a single 
Baptist Convention for the whole United 
States. But Northern and Southern Baptists 
are not, as some apparently delight to say, two 
separate denominations. The churches, both 
North and South, hold substantially one system 
of doctrine, agree in all important points of 
practice, receive and dismiss members from 
each other without question, and are in full, 
unrestricted, uninterrupted intercommunion. 
The old cause of bitterness and disunion, the 
question of property in slaves, has disap- 
peared. The generation that caused the 
breach of denominational unity has nearly dis- 
appeared. Those who are now the leaders of 
the Baptist hosts, both North and South, are 
largely men who were either born since the war 
or were too young at that time to have a vivid 
recollection of it, and they have little part in 
or sympathy with the ante-bellum contro- 
versies, misunderstandings, and bitterness. 
Such causes of estrangement as still remain are 
diminishing with every year, and if separate 
organizations are maintained or shall hereafter 
be formed for any kind of denominational work, 
it will be not because of mutual hostility and 
narrow sectional feeling, but because, in the 
judgment of cool-headed and judicious men, 



238 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the work of our Lord may be more advanta- 
geously and efficiently accomplished by such 
division of labor. 

After the Southern Baptists withdrew from 
the General Convention, acts of legislature 
were obtained in Pennsylvania and Massachu- 
setts, authorizing the changing of its name to 
the American Baptist Missionary Union, and 
fixing its headquarters at Boston. The Union 
is now composed of delegates appointed by 
the churches on a fixed basis. The most im- 
portant business is transacted by a Board of 
Managers (of whom one-third are elected at 
each annual meeting) and an Executive Com- 
mittee chosen by this Board. During the 
years since its first organization, the Union has 
done a great work in the foreign field. Its 
chief labors have been in Asia, but missions 
have also been maintained in Germany, France, 
Spain, Greece, Italy, and Sweden ; and within 
a few years an established mission in Central 
Africa has been turned over to American Bap- 
tists, and is conducted by them. Two auxili- 
ary organizations were formed in 187 1 : the 
Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, 
having its headquarters in Boston, and the 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the 
West, with its headquarters at Chicago. 

In the year 1816, the American Bible So- 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 239 

ciety was formed by delegates representing 
seven denominations of Christians. There 
had been local Bible Societies previous to this 
time. This organization was intended to be a 
national society in which all American Chris- 
tians might co-operate. Its formation was due 
to the success of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, the organization of which in 1804 
was directly owing to the agency of Rev. 
Joseph Hughes, an English Baptist. The 
Baptists of America were active in the work of 
the Society from the first, and in proportion to 
their means contributed generously to its 
treasury. The object of the society was 
avowed, at the time of its organization, to be 
"the dissemination of the Scriptures in the 
received versions where they exist, and in the 
most faithful where they are required." In 
accordance with this principle, for the first 
eighteen years of its existence the society 
appropriated money from its funds for the 
printing and circulation of versions of the 
Scriptures in many languages, made by mis- 
sionaries of various denominations. 

Perhaps Dr. Judson's greatest service in the 
cause of missions was the translation of the 
entire Bible into the Burmese language. It 
was his life-work, and remains to this day the 
only version of the Scriptures in that tongue. 



24O SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

All competent witnesses have borne testimony 
from the first to the faithfulness and elegance 
of his translation. The New Testament was 
printed at Moulmein in 1832, and the Old 
Testament two years later. Appropriations 
for this purpose were made by the American 
Bible Society. It was well understood on all 
hands, through official communications and 
otherwise, that the missionaries sent out by the 
American Baptists, in all their versions of the 
Scriptures endeavored to ascertain the precise 
meaning of the original text and to express 
that meaning as exactly as possible, transfer- 
ring no words into the vernacular for which a 
proper equivalent could be found. In accord- 
ance with this principle, Dr. Judson's version 
rendered baptizo and its cognates by a Burman 
word meaning to immerse, or dip. During 
this same period appropriations were voted for 
the circulation of other missionary versions, 
made by other than Baptist missionaries, yet 
made on the same principle of translation, 
though they did not agree with Judson as to 
the meaning of baptizo. In 1835 the propriety 
of this course was for the first time questioned. 
In that year application was made to the so- 
ciety for an appropriation to aid in printing 
and circulating a version of the Scriptures in 
Bengali, made on the principle of Dr. Judson's. 



THE D^VYS OF CONTROVERSY 24 1 

This application was discussed in committee 
and in the full Board for many months. The 
Baptist members of the Board vainly urged 
that the society had already appropriated 
eighteen thousand dollars for the circulation of 
Dr. Judson's version, with full knowledge of 
its nature ; that this was the only version ii: 
Burmese in existence, and that the alternative 
was either to circulate this or deprive the Bur- 
mese of the gospel ; and that the adoption of 
another rule introduced a new and necessarily 
divisive principle into the society' s policy. At 
length, by a vote of twenty to fourteen, the 
managers rejected the application and formu- 
lated for the guidance of the society a new 
rule regarding versions — that they would ' ' en- 
courage only such versions as conformed in the 
principle of their translation to the common 
English version, at least, so far that all the re- 
ligious denominations represented in this so- 
ciety can consistently use and circulate said ver- 
sions in their several schools and communities. ' ' 
At its next annual meeting in May, 1836, the 
society approved the action of the managers. 

Of course this decision made it impossible 
for Baptists to co-operate with the society ex- 
cept at the sacrifice of their self-respect. In 
April, 1837, a convention was held in Phila- 
delphia, composed of three hundred and 
Q 



242 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ninety delegates from twenty-three States, and 
the American and Foreign Bible Society was 
organized, Dr. Cone being elected president. 
Dr. Charles G. Sommers, of New York, was 
the first corresponding secretary, and William 
Colgate the first treasurer. From the first 
there was difference of opinion among the 
supporters of this Society on one question, 
namely, the making of a new version of the 
Scriptures in English. Baptists were practi- 
cally a unit in maintaining that all new versions 
into foreign languages should faithfully render 
every word of the original by the correspond- 
ing word of the vernacular. But many Bap- 
tists doubted the expediency, and still more 
questioned the necessity, of making a new 
version in our own tongue. The discussion 
of this question went on until May, 1850, 
when, after long and warm debate, the society 
voted to circulate only received versions in 
English, without note or comment. 

In the following June the American Bible 
Union was organized. Its object was declared 
to be ' ' to procure and circulate the most 
faithful versions of the Scriptures in all lan- 
guages throughout the world. ' ' The principle 
of translation adopted by the union was to 
render every word of the original Scriptures 
into the vernacular word which would most 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 243 

nearly represent its meaning as determined by 
the best modern scholarship. This work was 
prosecuted with much energy, and revised 
versions of the Scriptures were printed and 
circulated in Spanish and Italian, Chinese, 
Siamese, and Karen. The union also issued a 
version of the New Testament in English, in 
1865, which has since passed through several 
careful revisions and is a most faithful, accu- 
rate, and idiomatic translation. It may still be 
had of the American Baptist Publication So- 
ciety, and every Baptist should possess a copy ; 
for, however much the King James version 
may commend itself for use in public and pri- 
vate devotions, this more literal rendering is 
of the greatest service to one who would un- 
derstand exactly what the New Testament 
teaches. From time to time parts of the Old 
Testament also have been published, and emi- 
nent scholars are now completing a translation, 
with notes, of the remaining books, under the 
auspices of the American Baptist Publication 
Society. 

Fierce denominational controversies resulted 
from this division of effort among Baptists re- 
garding the Bible work. Many continued from 
the first to co-operate with the American Bible 
Society, especially in the circulation of the re- 
ceived English versions. The remainder who 



244 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

took any interest in Bible work were divided 
in their affections between two organizations, 
and the participants of each waged a hot war- 
fare against the others. At every denomina- 
tional gathering the strife broke out. The 
newspapers of the denomination were full of 
it, and in time the churches became heartily 
tired and showed their sentiments by discon- 
tinuing their contributions. As the receipts 
dwindled and the work contracted, efforts were 
made from time to time at a reunion of the 
American and Foreign Bible Society and the 
American Bible Union, and one or both socie- 
ties tried to effect a union with the American 
Baptist Publication Society. These efforts, 
which continued from 1869 to 1880 and even 
afterward, proved complete failures. 

Finally the whole question of Bible work, 
as done by the Baptists, was referred to a 
Bible convention, in which the denomination 
at large should be represented ; and such a 
convention was held at Saratoga in May, 1883. 
It was unanimously decided to recommend 
both the existing Bible societies practically to 
disband, and to commit the Bible work on the 
home field to the American Baptist Publica- 
tion Society, while that on the foreign field 
should be done by the American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union. This was felt on all hands to 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 245 

be a happy decision of the vexed question, and 
since that time the denomination has enjoyed 
a season of peace, at least as regards the ques- 
tion of its Bible work. 

To one reviewing the controversy after this 
interval of time it seems tolerably plain that 
while the course taken in 1836 was the only 
one that could have been expected under all 
the circumstances, it would have been better for 
the peace of the denomination and the effect- 
iveness of its Bible work in the long run if a 
separate denominational Bible society had 
never been undertaken. There is not suffi- 
cient interest among Baptists in the -translation 
and circulation of the Scriptures — probably 
there is not in any single denomination — to 
sustain a society that exists for that sole pur- 
pose. The project of circulating a denomina- 
tional version of the Scriptures in English has 
been tested once for all and proved to be a 
disastrous failure. The version was success- 
fully made and possesses many merits, but it 
could not be circulated ; Baptists could neither 
be forced nor coaxed to use it. They were 
greatly the losers and are still by reason of this 
apathy, but we must take the facts of human 
nature as we find them ; and one fact now 
unquestioned is that the attachment of English- 
speaking Christians to the version of the Scrip- 



246 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tures endeared to them by long use and tender 
association has proved to be too strong for the 
successful substitution of any other. 

No controversy was more disastrous to the 
Baptist churches of the Middle States than the 
an ti- Masonic struggle between the years 1826 
and 1840. One William Morgan, a Mason, 
who had published a book purporting to ex- 
pose the secrets of the order, suddenly disap- 
peared in 1826, and was believed to have been 
foully dealt with. A body was discovered and 
identified as his, though the identification has 
always been regarded as doubtful. Excite- 
ment against the Masons, and secret fraterni- 
ties generally, rose high, until the dispute 
became a political issue in State and even 
national elections, and the churches took the 
matter up. In a large number of Baptist 
churches the majority opposed secret fraterni- 
ties, declaring them to be unscriptural and 
dangerous to the peace and liberties of the 
commonwealth. In many cases the minority 
were disfellowshiped, and not a few flourishing 
churches were crippled, or even extinguished, 
while the growth of all was much retarded. 
The lessons of that period have taught Ameri- 
can Baptists to be chary of interfering through 
church discipline with questions not strictly 
religious, and to beware of attempting to settle 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 247 

by an authoritative rule questions of conduct 
which it is the right and duty of each Christian 
man to decide for himself. Thus, while at 
the present time, the majority of Baptists favor 
strongly total abstinence as a rule of personal 
conduct and prohibition as a practical policy, 
in very few churches is either made a test of 
fellowship. 

The Baptist churches of the South and West 
were much disturbed during the second quar- 
ter of this century by the agitation that culmi- 
nated in the establishment of the Disciples as 
a separate body. Up to that time the churches 
of these regions to a considerable extent held 
a hyper- Calvinistic, almost antinomian, theol- 
ogy. The preaching was largely doctrinal, and 
was not edifying to the majority of the hear- 
ers, however much it might be enjoyed by a 
few. Since the revival of 1800, religious ex- 
periences in this region had been attended 
with much emotional disturbance. Christians 
professed to see visions, to hear heavenly voices 
and to experience great extremes of grief and 
joy. Undue importance came to be attached 
to experiences of this type, and the relation of 
a series of vivid and emotional phenomena ap- 
proaching the miraculous was considered an 
almost indispensable requisite before the ac- 
ceptance of a candidate for baptism. 



248 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

About the year 181 5 certain preachers in 
Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky 
began to preach what they called a Reforma- 
tion. The professed object was to return to 
the simplicity of the New Testament faith and 
practice. The Scriptures alone were to be the 
authority in this Reformation, whose motto 
was, ' ' Where the Scriptures speak, we speak ; 
where they are silent, we are silent.'' All 
human creeds were rejected, candidates for 
baptism were not required to relate any ex- 
perience, but merely to profess faith in Christ, 
a faith that was little, if anything, more than 
a mere assent of the intellect to the facts nar- 
rated in the Scriptures concerning the historic 
Christ. On such profession the candidate was 
baptized ' ' for remission of sins, ' ' the teaching 
being that only in such baptism could he re- 
ceive the assurance that his sins had been 
pardoned. 

The foremost leader in promoting this Ref- 
ormation was Alexander Campbell, of Scotch 
ancestry and training, at first a Presbyterian of 
the Seceder sect, who had been baptized on 
profession of faith by a Baptist minister in 
181 2, and from that time onward maintained 
for some years "a nominal connection with the 
Baptist denomination. Very early, however, 
he manifested marked differences of opinion 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 249 

from the views then and since held by the 
majority of Baptists ; and it soon became evi- 
dent either that the faith and practice of the 
denomination must undergo a remarkable 
change, or Mr. Campbell and those who 
agreed with him must withdraw. 

When in 1827, through the influence of 
Rev. Walter Scott, the practice of baptism 
'•'unto remission of sins" became a recog- 
nized feature of the Reformation, Baptists, 
who saw in this nothing but the old heresy of 
baptismal regeneration, promptly bore testi- 
mony against it. The Mahoning Association, 
of Ohio, was so deeply permeated by the new 
teaching that it disbanded, and the churches 
followed Messrs. Campbell and Scott almost in 
a body. The Redstone Association, of West- 
ern Pennsylvania, withdrew fellowship from 
Mr. Campbell and his followers in 1827. Two 
years later the Beaver Association, of the same 
region, issued a warning to all Baptist churches 
against the errors taught under the guise of a 
Reformation, and in 1832 the Dover Associa- 
tion, of Virginia, advised Baptist churches 
to separate from their communion "all such 
persons as are promoting controversy and dis- 
cord under the specious name of Reformers. ' ' 
This advice was given on the ground that the 
doctrines taught were " not according to god- 



250 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

liness, but subversive of the true spirit of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ, disorganizing and de- 
moralizing in their tendency, and therefore 
ought to be disavowed and resisted by all the 
lovers of sound truth and piety. " Twenty 
years after, Rev. Jeremiah B. Jeter, one of the 
ablest Baptist opponents of the Disciple move- 
ment, and one of the authors of this resolu- 
tion, published it as his belief that the report 
adopted by the Dover Association contained 
"some unguarded, unnecessarily harsh ex- 
pressions, ' ' and particularly acknowledged that 
this characterization of the doctrines of Camp- 
bell as ' ' demoralizing in their tendency ' ' was 
unjust. After the action of the Dover As- 
sociation those who sympathized with Mr. 
Campbell either voluntarily withdrew from the 
Baptists or were disfellowshiped by them, and 
in a decade the separation was complete. 

The effect of this separation was very great. 
The new Reformation had been started, osten- 
sibly at least, with the desire of uniting all 
Christian denominations. Its practical result 
war the addition of another to the already long 
list of sects. The Baptist churches in the 
West and Southwest were rent in twain by the 
schism. Large numbers of Baptist churches 
went over to the Reformation in a body. 
Many others were divided. A period of heated 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 25 I 

and bitter controversy followed, the results of 
which have not yet passed away. The Baptist 
churches succeeded in separating themselves 
from what they regarded as dangerous heresy, 
but at a tremendous cost ; and in our own day 
the Baptists and the Disciples (as the followers 
of Mr. Campbell prefer to be called) have so 
nearly approached agreement that the sons of 
the men who fought hardest on either side are 
already discussing the question whether terms 
of reunion are not possible, without either 
party sacrificing any real principle. It must be 
added, however, that thus far the discussion 
of this question has thrown no great light upon 
the possibility of a reunion, and that the im- 
mediate occurrence of such an event cannot be 
predicted with hopefulness. 




CHAPTER XV 

BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES THE PERIOD 

OF EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 

j]S was pointed out before, the line of 
demarcation between the periods of 
American Baptist history is uncer- 
tain, and dates cannot be positively fixed. 
Overlapping the period of rapid growth and 
missionary extension, ending at the latest about 
the year 1850, is a movement of another sort, 
manifesting itself in the spiritual quickening 
and edification of the churches. For nearly a 
half century after the Great Awakening there 
had been no marked revivals of religion. Then 
a great revival wave, beginning in New England 
about the year 1790, swept over the whole 
country within the next ten years. In the 
Southwest it was marked by a fanaticism and a 
series of remarkable physical phenomena that 
tended to bring revivals into disfavor with the 
sober-minded and judicious. Thereupon en- 
sued another period of inaction, lasting about 
a generation. It was broken by the revivals of 
Finney, through whose agency in the ten 
252 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 253 

\ ^ars following 1S25 there were added fully 
cne hundred thousand persons to the North- 
ern Presbyterian churches. The year 1S57 
saw an even more remarkable wave of revival, 
from the influence of which no part of the 
country was exempt, and a half million are 
said to have been converted in a single year. 

Since then the norm of church life seems 
changed. Xo longer do we have periodic 
waves of intense religious excitement, with in- 
tervening periods of coolness and indifference, 
but a slowly rising tide of spiritual power. 
Progress is no longer by occasional leaps, but 
by a steady advance. Evangelism is not less 
genuine now than in the days when a Finney 
or a Knapp stirred whole communities as they 
never were stirred before, but now an evan- 
gelist preaches weekly from nearly every pul- 
pit. The type of preaching has changed ; it 
is simple and direct ; it aims more consciously 
at the conversion of men. It is more intelli- 
gently adapted to reach the will through the 
intellect and the affection, and to produce an 
immediate decision for or against Christ. 
Whether the change is permanent, it would be 
rash to pronounce. The names of Moody 
and Sam Jones, unworthy as they are in other 
ways to be pronounced together, testify to the 
fact that both at the North and at the South it 



254 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

is still possible to interest great crowds in re- 
ligion, and that occasional revivals may be ex- 
pected rivaling all that we read of in past 
years. 

The large place filled by local and State work 
during the past fifty years should be by no 
means overlooked, for it is one of the chief 
factors in Baptist progress. The State conven- 
tions or general Associations now organized in 
every State are missionary bodies, whose use- 
fulness it would be difficult to overrate. In 
the Baptist Missionary Convention of the State 
of New York, one of the oldest and most 
active of these bodies, will be found a good 
type of all. The object of this convention is 
declared in its constitution to be, "To promote 
the preaching of the gospel, and the establish- 
ment and maintenance of Baptist churches in 
the State of New York ; to encourage the 
common educational interests of the denomi- 
nation within the State, the general care and 
encouragement of denominational Sunday- 
school work, to promote denominational 
acquaintance, fellowship, and growth. ' ' Forty- 
three local Associations are found in the terri- 
tory of this convention. Many of the local 
Associations — which in the oldest States usually 
follow county lines — do a similar work, and 
often on a scale not inferior to that of the 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 255 

State organization, though in a field more cir- 
cumscribed. Of these the Southern New York 
Association is a good type. Organized for 
' ' The cultivation of fraternal sympathy, the 
promotion of each other's spiritual welfare, 
and the establishment and strengthening of 
Baptist churches within its bounds," its 
churches have long maintained efficient city 
mission work in the metropolis, to which is 
largely due the past and present growth of the 
New York Baptists. 

Another chief distinguishing feature of 
American Baptist history since 1850 may be 
said to be the remarkable development of edu- 
cational work. The beginnings of this work, 
of course, long antedate that year. 

Almost from the first, Baptists felt the ne- 
cessity of a better education for their children, 
and especially for the rising ministry. An 
academy was established by the Rev. Isaac 
Eaton, at Hopewell, N. J., in 1756, and con- 
tinued its work for eleven years. It even ob- 
tained a small endowment through the aid of 
the Philadelphia and Charleston Associations, 
which was, however, lost during the Revolu- 
tion through the depreciation of Continental 
money. During the continuance of its work, 
one of its pupils was James Manning ; his con- 
version occurred while he was at the academy, 



256 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and is to be ascribed under God to his teacher. 
If the Hopewell Academy had done nothing 
more than give the world James Manning, it 
would be entitled to the gratitude of Baptists 
for all time. But it also gave us a man only 
less distinguished and useful than he, Hezekiah 
Smith, and many other eminent ministers and 
laymen were among its pupils. Similar pri- 
vate schools of a like grade were established in 
other places by Baptists ; among them one at 
Lower Dublin (now Philadelphia) by Dr. 
Samuel Jones, one in New York by Dr. Stan- 
ford, and one at Bordentown, N. J., by Dr. 
Burgess Allison. 

About 1750 some Baptists in the Philadel- 
phia Association began to consider seriously 
the project of founding a higher institution of 
learning. Few Baptist students could avail 
themselves of the advantages offered by 
the existing colleges, which were besides 
strongly anti-Baptist in sentiment and often in 
teaching. For various reasons it was difficult 
to obtain a charter for such an institution from 
the legislatures of New York, New Jersey, or 
Pennsylvania. Consequently, though the pro- 
ject for the new college originated in the 
Philadelphia Association, the eyes of the 
brethren were turned toward Rhode Island as 
the State most likely to grant the Baptists a 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 257 

liberal charter for a college. They looked 
about for a suitable head of such an institution 
and found it in James Manning, who had gone 
in 1758 from Hopewell Academy to Princeton 
College, and was graduated four years later 
with the second honors of his class. Shortly 
after his graduation he married Margaret Stites, 
the daughter of a ruling elder of the Presby- 
terian church in Elizabethtown, who proved 
"an help meet for him" indeed. A year 
was spent in travel through the country, and 
when Manning returned he found his life-work 
ready for him. 

Manning was a young man to take the lead 
in such an enterprise, it is true, but was greatly 
esteemed for his prudence and good sense, of 
fine presence and good repute as a scholar, in 
every way fitted to be an educational leader. 
He met the Baptists of Rhode Island, or some 
of their representative men, at Newport, in 
July, 1763. He unfolded his plan and it met 
with their acceptance. A charter was drafted, 
and, after some legislative pitfalls were success- 
fully avoided, it was enacted in February, 
1764. It provided that the president, twenty- 
two trustees, and eight fellows were forever to 
be Baptists ; but the remaining trustees of the 
thirty-six were to be of the different denomi- 
nations then represented in the State ; while 

R 



258 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

four fellows were to be elected ' ' indifferently 
of any or of all denominations." To all po- 
sitions in the faculty save that of president, 
and to all other honors and advantages, per- 
sons of all religious denominations were to be 
freely admitted. Such a charter, while it gave 
to the denomination that founded the institu- 
tion perpetual control of it (as was but right), 
was in perfect harmony with the spirit of relig- 
ious liberty that had characterized the colony 
of Rhode Island from the first. 

The college began giving instruction in War- 
ren in 1766, Mr. Manning being president and 
professor of languages ; and that year the in- 
stitution had one student. The college cele- 
brated its first commencement September 7, 
1769, when the degree of Bachelor of Arts 
was conferred on seven young men. In 1770 
the people of Providence subscribed four thou- 
sand two hundred dollars for the erection of 
University Hall, and the college was removed 
to that city. In 1776 the capture of the city 
by the British made necessary the suspension 
of instruction, which was not resumed until 
1780, the college building being used much of 
the time by the British as a barracks. Dr. 
Manning continued his labors as president 
until his death in 1791. During the greater 
portion of the time he was also pastor of the 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 259 

First Church of Providence. In 1804 the 
name of the college (at first Rhode Island 
College) was changed to Brown University, in 
honor of Nicholas Brown, its generous bene- 
factor. This, the oldest and best-known Bap- 
tist institution of learning, has a long and dis- 
tinguished roll of alumni and a property valued 
at two and a half million dollars. 

Very soon the need of more distinctively the- 
ological education was felt, but for some time 
nothing was done. The Newton Theological 
Institution owes its origin to a meeting of min- 
isters and laymen held in Boston, 1825. Its 
early years were marked by difficulties and 
debt, but at length a permanent endowment 
was secured. It has graduated or instructed 
over eight hundred students, and among 
its alumni are many of the most useful and 
distinguished preachers and teachers of the 
denomination. Another New England insti- 
tution is Waterville College, Maine, which was 
founded in 18 18 by the Rev. Jeremiah Chap- 
lin, as the outcome of a private school main- 
tained by him at Danvers. The collegiate 
charter was granted in 1820. The early his- 
tory of the institution was one of continual 
struggle with adversity, but of late years it has 
found generous friends. In recognition of the 
benefactions of one of these, Gardner Colby, 



26o SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the name was changed, in 1867, to Colby 
University. 

New England Baptists have been wiser in 
their day than those of most other sections, 
by providing liberally for secondary or academic 
education. Thus Colby has three Maine acad- 
emies closely connected with it as feeders, 
while New Hampshire and Vermont have each 
a flourishing academy. Worcester Academy, 
in Massachusetts, and the Suffield Literary In- 
stitution, in Connecticut, care for the Baptist 
youth of those States, and are among the prin- 
cipal sources whence Brown University derives 
students. The educational system of New 
England Baptists therefore stands on a solid 
foundation ; they have not committed the 
error of resting the pyramid on its apex. 

In the Middle and Western States, and to 
some extent in the South, there has not been 
this unity of action in educational matters. 
Early in the present century a new develop- 
ment of interest in education was manifest 
among the Baptists, which took form in the 
organization of education societies. One of 
the first of these was formed at Hamilton, N. Y. , 
in 181 7, and the following year Jonathan Wade 
was admitted a student of the new institution. 
President Garfield said once that his idea of a 
college was Mark Hopkins at one end of a log 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 26 1 

and a young man at the other. That was 
about how the Hamilton Literary and Theo- 
logical Institution began ; at one end was 
Jonathan Wade, at the other Daniel Hascall. 
The second student to join this infant institu- 
tion was Eugenio Kincaid. Soon others came, 
and in 1820 the institution was opened to the 
public and formal instruction began. 

Another institution that belongs to this early 
period is the Columbian College, at Washing- 
ton. It owes its origin, like so many other of 
our best denominational agencies, to the Phil- 
adelphia Association. As far back as 1807, 
Dr. William Staughton began to receive stu- 
dents into his household. He continued this 
work for a series of years, partly on his own 
account, partly as an appointed " tutor" of 
the Baptist Education Society of the Middle 
States. Finally, at the instance of the Rev. 
Luther Rice, the General Convention took the 
matter up, and undertook the establishment 
of a higher institution of learning, especially 
for the training of ministers. This movement 
resulted in the chartering of the Columbian 
College (now University) in 182 1, and the 
removal of Dr. Staughton' s school to Wash- 
ington as the "theological department" of the 
new college. The hope of establishing a 
school at Washington for the training of min- 



262 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

isters proved futile, and this theological de- 
partment was finally transferred to Newton, at 
its establishment in 1825. 

The school at Hamilton, in 1834, developed 
into the Hamilton Literary and Theological 
Institution. In 1846, the literary department 
was chartered as a university, its name being 
changed to Madison University, the Theologi- 
cal Seminary being maintained as a separate 
institution, but in harmony with the college. 
The village of Hamilton was thought by many 
Baptists to be an unsuitable site for a denomi- 
national school, and in 1847 an effort was made 
to remove it to a better location. 

The city of Rochester offered special in- 
ducements and was decided upon as the new 
site. But a party rallied to the defense of the 
old site, discussions grew warm, passionate 
feelings were excited, and the end was a divi- 
sion — part of the faculty and supporters going 
to found a new institution, since known as the 
University of Rochester. The new institution 
opened its doors to students in 1850. April 
6, 1853, Martin Brewer Anderson was chosen 
president, and filled the office with conspicu- 
ous ability until 1888. David J. Hill, then 
president of Bucknell University, was elected 
his successor, and resigned in 1895. 

The Rochester Theological Seminary was 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 263 

founded in 1850 by the New York Baptist 
Union for Ministerial Education, and in 1853, 
Rev. Ezekiel G. Robinson was elected presi- 
dent. At his resignation in 1872, Rev. Au- 
gustus Hopkins Strong was chosen to be his 
successor. A German Department was organ- 
ized in 1854, and has ever since been main- 
tained. 

In the meantime the friends of the institu- 
tion at Hamilton rallied to its support and 
gradually increased its endowment. The fam- 
ily of William Colgate have repeatedly been 
its munificent benefactors, and in honor of 
them the institution was named Colgate Uni- 
versity in 1890. Thus, out of seeming mis- 
fortune has come some good. Still this divi- 
sion of the New York institution has been 
marked by a corresponding division among the 
churches, part of which have supported the 
one and part the other. The old bitterness 
has somewhat subsided of late years, but it is 
in the highest degree unfortunate that the 
present generation should seem willing to per- 
petuate divisions caused by the unwisdom and 
contentiousness of their fathers. 

This experience has been duplicated in sev- 
eral Western States, and rival institutions have 
been founded in excess of educational needs, 
with the result of making all poor and ineffi- 



264 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

cient, where a single strong institution might 
have been established. So serious had be- 
come the lack of unity, and the consequent 
waste of money and labor, that there was 
organized at Washington, in May, 1888, an 
American Baptist Education Society, under 
whose leadership it is to be hoped that the 
mistakes of the past may be avoided. Its great 
achievements thus far have been assisting the 
Southern and Western institutions to add to 
their endowments, and the founding of the 
new University of Chicago, through the liber- 
ality of Mr. John D. Rockefeller. Though 
established so recently as 1890,' this university 
has already property amounting to nearly or 
quite ten millions. 

We can do little more than name the prin- 
cipal schools of learning founded by Baptists 
during the last half century ; if it were at- 
tempted to give even a brief sketch of the 
career of each, these chapters would stretch 
out to such proportions as to make the name 
' ' Short History ' ' meaningless. The following 
should at least be named : Baptist Union 
Theological Seminary, Morgan Park, 111. 
(1867); Crozer Theological Seminary, Up- 
land, Pa. (1868) ; Southern Baptist Theologi- 
cal Seminary, Louisville, Ky. (1858); Buck- 
nell University, Lewisburg, Pa. (1846) ; 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 265 

Columbian University, Washington, D. C. 
(182 1); Richmond College, Richmond, Va. 
(1832); Denison University, Granville, Ohio 
(1832). Vassar College, founded in 1861, at 
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. , by the beneficence of 
Matthew Vassar, is the best endowed college 
for women in the world. The omission of 
other names does not imply that institutions 
equally worthy and doing excellent work do 
not exist in many parts of our land. 

In summing up the educational work of 
Baptists, one must be content with very brief 
statements and bold outlines. At present 
(1897) Baptists have one hundred and sixty- 
nine educational institutions, of which seven are 
theological seminaries and sixty-five claim a col- 
legiate grade. At least one-third of these last 
should be ranked in the academic grade. The 
aggregate value of the property and endow- 
ments of these institutions is over thirty-six 
million dollars. In the matter of founding 
institutions, especially in the newer parts of the 
West and South, Baptists have acted with more 
zeal than discretion. They have established 
too many "universities" with high-sounding 
titles, that have never been more than good 
academies. On the other hand, in the older 
sections of the country too little attention has 
been given to the providing of good secondary 



266 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

instruction in high-grade academies. Conse- 
quently, as has already been hinted, our edu- 
cational system resembles a pyramid standing 
on its apex. It needs reconstruction. The 
great educational need of Baptists is not more 
colleges, nor even better endowment for such 
as we have — though we need that — but more 
academies of the first rank. This is the teach- 
ing of our history in regard to education, and 
we shall study the past to little purpose if 
we are not helped by it to avoid errors that 
have been committed by our fathers. We 
need imply no disrespect for them if we say 
that the future will demand of us greater wis- 
dom than they showed. We should take shame 
to ourselves if we are not wiser than they, if 
we cannot see their mistakes, and, while grate- 
ful to them for all that they achieved, strive to 
do better and more permanent work than they 
did. 

One of the most striking things in the re- 
cent religious history of America has been the 
development of work among and for the 
young. The Sunday-school was established 
as a department of church work early in the 
present century, and from about the year i860 
societies for young people began to be formed 
almost simultaneously in most of the evangeli- 
cal churches. There was nothing like a con- 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 267 

certed movement, however, for another twenty 
years. 

In the Williston Congregational Church, of 
Portland, Me. , a society was formed February 
2, 1 88 1, to which the name was given of " The 
Society of Christian Endeavor. ' ' It attempted 
to organize the young people in a closer rela- 
tion to the church than had been general, and 
to train them for Christian service. The idea 
was catching, and societies of this kind were 
rapidly organized in many localities and among 
various denominations. 

Not a few Baptist pastors desired a society 
that should be more distinctively denomina- 
tional in character, and have a denominational 
name ; and for a time there was much discus- 
sion and even prospect of serious trouble in 
the denomination. In October, 1889, at the 
meeting of the Nebraska State Convention, 
the Nebraska Convention of Baptist Young 
People was organized, and all societies of Bap- 
tist young people in the State were invited to 
affiliate with it, without giving up the name or 
form of organization that they preferred. At 
the instance of the American Baptist Publica- 
tion Society a conference of friends of the 
work was held in Philadelphia, April 22, 1891, 
as a result of which this policy was commended 
to the Baptist churches at large. Accordingly, 



268 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

at Chicago, on July 8 of the same year, the 
Baptist Young People' s Union of America was 
organized on a basis so broad that any society 
of young people in a Baptist church, or the 
young people of a Baptist church who have no 
organization, are entitled to all its privileges. 

The distinctive work of this organization is 
educational. In its organ, the ' ' Baptist 
Union," it publishes every year three courses 
of study on the Bible, missions, and denomi- 
national teachings and history. These Chris- 
tian Culture Courses are now pursued by many 
thousands of young Baptists, the number of 
students increasing every year, and several of 
the courses of study have been published in 
permanent book form. It is the hope and 
expectation that the coming generation of Bap- 
tists will be, as a result of this educational 
work, more intelligent, consistent, and loyal 
Baptists, and not less catholic Christians. Sev- 
eral other denominations have watched this 
work with growing interest, and are planning 
something of a similar nature for their own 
young people. 

Chief among the educational institutions of 
the denomination may be reckoned the Amer- 
ican Baptist Publication Society. Beginning 
at Washington, D. C, in 1824, as the Baptist 
General Tract Society, its transfer to Philadel- 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 269 

phia was voted in November, 1826. In 1840 
its name was changed to the American Baptist 
Publication and Sunday-school Society (the 
word Sunday-school being dropped in 1844), 
and the purposes of the organization were en- 
larged, being now defined as " to promote evan- 
gelical religion by means of the printing press, 
colportage, and the Sunday-school." In 1856 
the Society acquired by purchase the ' ' Young 
Reaper," and from that time added other 
Sunday-school periodicals to its list, until it 
reached its present proportions and immense 
circulation. Besides its colportage work in 
this country, the Society has from time to time 
engaged in foreign colportage, men like One- 
ken, Wiberg, and Bickel, having been aided 
in this way to carry on missionary work in 
Europe. Since 1862 this work has been con- 
ducted by a missionary department, with sepa- 
rate offices and separate accounts. 

In recent years the Society has still further 
enlarged its operations by engaging in the pub- 
lication of a general Christian literature. This 
work was begun as long ago as 1844, .but the 
increase of the Society's capital and facilities, 
and possibly also increased literary activity 
among Baptists, have made possible a large 
advance in the publication and sale of this 
general literature. In 1896 the Society re- 



27O SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ported 6 i in print ' ' two hundred and six such 
publications as against one hundred and sixty- 
eight Sunday-school books. The erection of a 
new manufacturing building in 1896 added 
greatly to the Society's facilities, and no doubt 
the future will see a still greater development 
of its work along this line. 

The missionary and the printing-press — 
what have not these two done to extend the 
kingdom of Christ ? What may they not do in 
the future ? 



CHAPTER XVI 

BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES IRREGULAR 

BAPTIST BODIES 




HUS far we have considered only the 
"Regular" Baptists in the United 
States. There are numerous other 
bodies that agree with these "Regular" Bap- 
tists in their fundamental doctrine of the con- 
stitution of the church and the nature of bap- 
tism. Any Christian body that practises be- 
lievers' baptism — meaning by ' ' baptism ' ' im- 
mersion, and by "believer" one who gives 
credible evidence of regeneration — is funda- 
mentally a Baptist, by whatever name he may 
be called, or whatever may be his oddities of 
doctrine or practice in other respects. 

The earliest of the irregular Baptist bodies 
— and the term ' ' irregular ' ' is used simply as 
a distinguishing epithet, with no idea of dis- 
paragement — are various organizations that dif- 
fer somewhat among themselves, but agree in 
holding an Arminian theology. The first of 
these to become definitely organized were 
the Six Principle Baptists. They have existed 

271 



272 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

in Rhode Island from 1639, some of the 
original members of the church founded at 
Providence by Roger Williams seemingly hav- 
ing been of that persuasion. From 1670 they 
have held a definite standing, and, as we have 
seen, their yearly meeting in New England 
was the second organization of the kind to be 
formed. A second yearly meeting or associa- 
tion was afterward formed in Pennsylvania, 
where it still exists, with a membership of five 
churches. In all, this body has but eighteen 
churches and not a thousand members. 

In 1729 a number of Baptist churches in 
North Carolina that held Arminian notions 
joined in an Association. Some of these af- 
terward became "Regular," and the rest 
were popularly known as i ' Freewillers. ' ' This 
name was accepted after a time as a fitting one, 
and still later, to distinguish themselves from 
other bodies of like name, they called them- 
selves Original Freewill Baptists. They prac- 
tise feet-washing and anointing the sick with 
oil, and maintain a strict discipline. They 
had in 1890 one hundred and sixty-seven 
churches and eleven thousand eight hundred 
and sixty-four members. 

The body better known as Freewill Baptists 
dates, as a separate organization, from 1780, 
when Benjamin Randall organized the first 



IRREGULAR BAPTIST BODIES 273 

church of this order at New Durham, New 
Hampshire. He had been converted under 
the preaching of Whiten eld, and was at first a 
Congregationalist, but adopted Baptist views 
and joined a Regular Baptist Church, by which 
he was disfellowshiped in 1779 for rejecting 
Calvinistic doctrines. The following year he 
was ordained by two Baptist ministers who 
shared his views, and the new denomination 
began. It rapidly extended in New England, 
being aided perhaps by its practice of ' ' open ' ' 
communion; and in 1841 the Free-Com- 
munion Baptists of New York united with this 
body. Before this, in 1827, a General Con- 
ference had been organized, which formerly 
met triennially, but of late years holds biennial 
meetings. During the anti-slavery agitation 
the Freewill Baptists took strong ground in 
favor of abolition, and declined overtures for 
union made by about twelve thousand Baptists 
of Kentucky, because the latter favored slavery. 
The Freewill Baptist Foreign Mission Society 
was organized in 1833, and has a vigorous mis- 
sion in India. A Home Mission Society was 
formed in 1834, and an Education Society in 
1840. The denomination sustains Hillsdale 
College, in Michigan ; Bates College, in Maine ; 
besides numerous schools of academic grade. 
They also have a publishing house, formerly 



274 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

located at Dover, New Hampshire, but now at 
Boston, Massachusetts. The official name of 
the body was changed some years ago to Free 
Baptists, though they are still usually called by 
the old and better-known name. Their num- 
bers are now under ninety thousand. 

The rise of the Separate Baptists, in con- 
nection with the Whitefield revivals, has already 
been told. They were also known as Free- 
Communion Baptists. In the Northern States 
they have been largely absorbed by the Free 
Baptists, and in the South most of them re- 
united after a time with the Regular Baptists. 
Two Associations in the South, which still re- 
tain the name Separate, are counted with the 
Regular Baptists, but one Association in Indi- 
ana still refuses any fellowship with the Regu- 
lar Baptist churches. There are twenty-four 
churches in this Association, which had one 
thousand five hundred and ninety-nine mem- 
bers in 1890. When the "Separates" and 
"Old Lights" united in the South they as- 
sumed the name of United Baptists at first. 
For the most part this name was gradually 
dropped, and the United Baptists became 
simply Baptists and are reckoned with the 
" Regulars." But in a number of States (Al- 
abama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Ten- 
nessee) there are still churches and Associa- 



IRREGULAR BAPTIST BODIES 2/5 

tions that retain the name United and hold 
aloof from all other organizations. In 1890 
there were two hundred and four churches of 
this order and thirteen thousand two hundred 
and nine members. 

In 1882, a small denomination, mostly hold- 
ing Arminian views, but practising strict com- 
munion, was formed in the West, principally 
in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and 
Kentucky, under the name of General Bap- 
tists. In 1830 they adopted the practice of 
' ' open ' ' communion, and not long after ex- 
punged from their confession all remnants of 
Calvinism. In 1870 a General Association 
w r as formed that represents three hundred and 
ninety-nine churches in seven Western and 
Southern States, with a membership of twenty- 
one thousand three hundred and sixty-two. 

There are also a number of Calvinistic Bap- 
tist bodies that for one reason or another de- 
cline fellowship with the Regular Baptists. A 
considerable number of Baptists in the early 
part of this century separated from the other 
churches on account of doctrinal and practical 
differences. Holding a hyper-Calvinistic the- 
ology, they were opposed to missions, Sunday- 
schools, and all ' ' contrivances which seem to 
make the salvation of men depend on human 
effort. ' ' They call themselves Primitive Bap- 



276 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tists, and have been known as " An ti- Mission/' 
"Anti-Effort," "Old," and "Hard-shell" 
Baptists. They have churches in twenty-eight 
States, and are strong in the country districts 
of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Ken- 
tucky, and Tennessee. There has been an 
impression until late years that they had be- 
come a feeble body, rapidly on the way to 
extinction. Such is undoubtedly the case in 
the North, but in the South they seem to be 
not merely holding their own, but increasing. 
In 1890 they had three thousand two hundred 
and twenty-two churches and one hundred 
and twenty-one thousand three hundred and 
forty-seven members. 

Even more fiercely Calvinistic are the Old 
Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists, 
who are said to owe their origin to the curious 
theology of Elder Daniel Parker, a Baptist 
minister who labored in the States of Tennes- 
see and Illinois from 1806 to 1836. Parker 
taught that part of Eve's offspring were the 
seed of God and elect to eternal life ; part 
were the seed of Satan and foreordained to 
the kingdom of eternal darkness. Many of 
these Baptists object to a paid ministry, and 
they agree with the Primitive Baptists in repro- 
bation of all ' ' modern institutions. " In 1 890 
they had four hundred and seventy-three 



IRREGULAR BAPTIST BODIES 277 

churches and twelve thousand eight hundred 
and fifty-one members, distributed through 
twenty-four States. They are strongest in 
Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas. 

The Baptist Church of Christ seems to have 
originated in Tennessee, where the oldest or- 
ganizations were formed in 1808. From this 
center they have spread to six other States, 
and in 1890 had one hundred and fifty-two 
churches and eight thousand two hundred and 
fifty-four members. They are mildly Calvin- 
istic and practise feet-washing. 

The Seventh Day Baptists had an origin in 
Rhode Island, quite independent of the Eng- 
lish body of the same name, a church being 
founded, at Newport in 167 1 by Stephen Mum- 
ford. A general conference was organized 
early in the present century, which has met 
triennially since 1846. They formed a foreign 
missionary society in 1842, and support a tract 
and publishing house. Their headquarters are 
at Alfred Center. Here they maintain a col- 
lege, and another is located at Milton, Wis. 
They have one hundred and twelve churches, 
and over nine thousand members. German 
immigrants, settling at what is now German- 
town, Pa., in 1723, formed the first German 
Seventh Day Baptist Church. According to 
the census of 1890, there were then one hun- 



278 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

dred and six churches of this order in twenty- 
four States, and nine thousand one hundred 
and forty-three members. The Seventh Day 
Baptists are strongest in New York, one-fourth 
of the churches and one-third of the members 
being found in that State. 

Thus far all of the irregular Baptist bodies 
that we have considered embody the word 
Baptist in their official titles. There are a num- 
ber of other bodies, called by various names, 
that accept the fundamental principle of be- 
lievers' baptism. The most important of these 
is a body that calls itself simply ' ' The Breth- 
ren," but is usually called Dunkards, some- 
times Tunkers, and occasionally ' ' German Bap- 
tists ' ' ; but they are not to be confounded 
with the regular German Baptists. The Dunk- 
ards originated in Schwartzenau, Germany, 
about the beginning of the eighteenth century. 
To escape persecution they emigrated to Penn- 
sylvania, where they settled in considerable 
numbers from 17 19 to 1730, and have pros- 
pered greatly in numbers and wealth. They 
hold in the main the same doctrines as the 
' ' Regular ' ' Baptists, but add some peculiari- 
ties of practice. They have an ordained min- 
istry, but pay ministers no salary, regarding 
even the receiving of fees with great disfavor. 
They oppose Sunday-schools and secret socie- 



IRREGULAR BAPTIST -BODIES 279 

ties, practise feet- washing as a religious ordi- 
nance 1 interpreting literally the words of the 
apostle in 1 Cor. 16 : 20, they " greet one an- 
other with a holy kiss. ' ' They bore consistent 
testimony against slavery, and are now active 
advocates of total abstinence. They were for 
a time inclined to regard higher education as 
conforming to the world, but they have now 
several colleges and high schools, in which co- 
education is practised. They still oppose the 
establishment of theological schools and semi- 
naries. Owing to differences of various kinds, 
chiefly about matters of discipline, they have 
become broken into four separate bodies, one 
of which observes the seventh day. In 189c* 
there were nine hundred and eighty-nine 
churches. 

The Winebrennarians, or i ' Church of God, ' ' 
owe their origin to the labors of Rev. John 
Winebrenner, who in the year 1820 was settled 
as pastor of the German Reformed Church at 
Harrisburg, Pa. A great revival of religion 
began among his people, and the work aroused 
much opposition in the church, which looked 
unfavorably upon such manifestations of ab- 
normal excitement (as they viewed revivals). 
After five years of conflict, Mr. Winebrenner 
and his people separated from the German 
Reformed Church and formed an independent 



28o SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

congregation. About this time similar revivals 
occurred in the surrounding towns, and re- 
sulted in the organization of new churches. 
In the meantime, Mr. Winebrenner had been 
studying the Scriptures, and came to the con- 
clusion that neither in doctrine nor in dis- 
cipline did the German Reformed Church 
correspond to the apostolic model, which he 
now conceived to be independent churches, 
composed only of believers, and without any 
human creed or laws, the Scriptures alone 
being accepted as the rule of faith and prac- 
tice. In October, 1830, a meeting was held 
at Harrisburg, at which a regular system of 
co-operation was adopted by the churches 
sympathizing with these views, and Mr. Wine- 
brenner was elected speaker of the conference. 
This body now meets annually, and fourteen 
other conferences or annual elderships have 
since been organized, besides a general elder- 
ship that meets triennially. The Church of 
God has an itinerant ministry, the appoint- 
ments being made by the respective elderships ; 
they practise feet-washing as a religious ordi- 
nance, recognize only immersion of believers 
as baptism, and hold that the Lord's Supper 
should be administered to Christians only, in a 
sitting posture, and always in the evening. 
The church has a publishing house at Harris- 



IRREGULAR BAPTIST BODIES 28 1 

burg, an academy at Bosheyville, Pa., and a 
college at Findlay, Ohio. In 1890 they had 
four hundred and seventy-nine churches and 
twenty-two thousand five hundred and eleven 
members, and were represented in fifteen 
States. 

The River Brethren, probably of Menno- 
nite origin, settled in Eastern Pennsylvania, 
near the Susquehanna River, about 1750; 
from their baptizing in that river they gained 
their name. They practise trine immersion 
and feeMvashing ; and in the doctrines of non- 
resistance and non-conformity to the world 
they resemble the Friends as well as the Men- 
nonites. There are now three divisions of the 
River Brethren. In 1890 there were one hun- 
dred and eleven churches and three thousand 
four hundred and twenty-seven members, and 
they have spread from Pennsylvania into eight 
other States. 

Several other bodies practise adult immer- 
sion, though they are not in all cases scrupu- 
lous about requiring evidence of regeneration. 
The Adventists arose from the teachings of 
William Miller, before described, and are al- 
ready broken into six sects or groups, with a 
total strength of over sixty thousand. The 
Christadelphians have some affinity with Ad- 
ventists, but reject the doctrine of the Trinity, 



282 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

though believing Christ to be the Son of God. 
They are a small body, of about twelve hun- 
dred members. The Social Brethren is a body 
that originated in Arkansas and Illinois about 
1867, from Baptist and Methodist churches, 
and partakes of the peculiarities of both de- 
nominations. These Brethren reject infant 
baptism, but agree with the Methodists in per- 
mitting a candidate to choose between immer- 
sion, pouring, and sprinkling. It is said that 
immersion is chosen in the majority of cases. 
In 1890 they had twenty churches and nine 
hundred and thirteen members. These last- 
named bodies are mentioned, less because they 
have genuine affinity with Baptists than to an- 
swer questions continually coming to the author 
from readers of this history, about the doc- 
trines and practices of these denominations. 




CHAPTER XVII 

BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 

jHE capture of Quebec, in 1759, marks 
the beginning of Protestant conquest 
in Canada. Baptists were among 
the first to profit by the new order of things 
under the British rule. In the following year 
Shubael Dimock emigrated from Connecticut 
and settled in Nova Scotia, He had separated 
from the churches of the standing order, and 
for holding unauthorized religious meetings 
had suffered both corporal punishment and im- 
prisonment. His son Daniel had gone even 
further and denied the scripturalness of infant 
baptism. These new settlers were accom- 
panied by a Baptist minister, the Rev. John. 
Sutton, who remained in the province about a 
year, baptizing Daniel Dimock and some 
others. Daniel Dimock baptized his father 
about 1775, but so far as is known no Baptist 
church was organized. A visit to the province 
in 1 761 by the Rev. Ebenezer Moulton, of 
Massachusetts, is said to have been followed 
by conversions and baptisms at Yarmouth and 

2S3 



284 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Horton, a church being formed at the latter 
place about 1763, of both Baptists and Con- 
gregationalists. This minister was the ancestor 
of Mrs. McMaster, the founder of Moulton 
College. 

It was in 1763 that the first real foothold was 
gained in Canada by the Baptists. Members of 
the Second Church in Swansea, Mass., and of 
two or three neighboring churches, to the num- 
ber of thirteen, constituted a Baptist church, 
chose the Rev. Nathan Mason as their pastor, 
and emigrated in a body to Sackville, then in 
Nova Scotia, but since 1784 in the province of 
New Brunswick. They remained for eight 
years, during which time their numbers had 
increased to sixty ; then, for some reason, the 
original immigrants returned to Massachusetts, 
and the church became scattered and finally 
ceased to exist. A new organization was, 
however, formed in the same place in 1799. 

Up to the year 1775, therefore, the net 
progress of the Baptists had been small ; there 
were a handful of believers, scattered here and 
there, but not a single church had been able to 
maintain an existence. In that year Henry 
Alline was converted and became an evangel- 
ist of the Whitefield type, traveling up and 
down Novia Scotia and preaching the gospel 
with great power. He was a Congregational- 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 285 

ist, and many of his converts formed churches 
of that order, but in a number of instances 
Baptist churches trace their origin to this revival 
of religion. 

The first of these was constituted of ten 
members, October 19, 1778, at Horton, and 
remains to this day not only the oldest but one 
of the strongest churches in the province. 
The Rev. Nicholson Pearson was chosen pas- 
tor, and in the two following years fifty-two 
were added to the church. This growth in 
numbers, however, was in part accomplished 
by the adoption of open communion and 
mixed membership, Congregationalists being 
admitted to full fellowship on equal terms with 
baptized believers. It was not until 1809 that 
the Horton Church became what we under- 
stand by the phrase, a Baptist church. The 
practice of mixed membership, or at any rate 
of open communion, was general among the 
Baptist churches of this province until the early 
years of the present century, they having grad- 
ually felt their way toward their present posi- 
tion. Churches were organized rapidly be- 
tween 1780 and 1800, including those of 
Halifax (1795), Newport (1799), Sackville 
(1799), as we U as Annapolis and Upper Gran- 
ville, Chester, Cornwallis, Yarmouth, and 
Digby, the dates of whose organizations are 



286 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

unknown. Of these churches the First Hali- 
fax seems to have been the only one that ad- 
mitted to membership only baptized believers jj 
and it is doubtful whether even that church 
practised restricted communion during this 
period. In this respect the early history of 
the Baptists of Canada differs widely from that 
of the first Baptist churches in the United 
States. 

The first Baptists of Lower Canada seem to 
have arisen among a settlement of American 
Tories, not far from the Vermont line. Elders 
John Hebbard and Ariel Kendrick, mission- 
aries of the Woodstock Association, of Ver- 
mont, visited them in 1794, and their preach- 
ing was followed by an extensive revival. A 
few years later Rev. Elisha Andrews, of Fair- 
fax, Vt. , visited these people at their request, 
baptized about thirty converts, and organized 
the Eaton Church. A number of other 
churches were soon afterward formed in this 
region, several of which were for a time affili- 
ated with the Richmond Association of Ver- 
mont. The Domestic Missionary Society of 
Massachusetts, and other like New England 
organizations, paid much attention to this field, 
frequently sending missionaries thither. 

The beginnings in Upper Canada seem to 
have been practically simultaneous, but quite 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 287 

without concert, with those in the lower prov- 
ince. In 1794 Reuben Crandall, at that time 
a licentiate, settled on the northern shore of 
Lake Ontario, in what is now Prince Edward 
County, and the following year he had gained 
converts enough to organize a church. Other 
ministers from ' ' the States ' ' followed, and 
other churches were gathered in like manner. 
About the year 1800 Titus Fitch, another licen- 
tiate, located at Haldimand, where his labors 
resulted in the formation of a church of thirty 
members in 1804. It appears to have been 
the fashion in those days when a young licen- 
tiate was not called by a church, for him to go 
out in the region beyond and call a church — a 
fashion that may be commended to the rising 
ministry of our day for their imitation. 

It will therefore be seen that the first Bap- 
tist churches of Canada, in all its provinces 
alike, for the most part owe their origin either 
to colonies from the United States or to the 
labors of missionaries from this country. The 
most marked exception is found in the group 
of churches that compose the Ottawa Associa- 
tion, who, together with their pastors, were 
largely composed of Scotch immigrants, and 
trace their line of descent as Baptists to the 
labors in Edinburgh of the brothers Haldane. 
Baptist growth was slow up to 1830, and has 



288 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

never been rapid in Quebec, whose population 
is so largely French and Catholic ; and it was 
retarded unduly by various internal disagree- 
ments, chief of which was the question of close 
or open communion. The great majority of 
Canadian Baptists have, for a generation, be- 
longed to the Regular, or strict-communion 
wing of the denomination. 

Alexander Crawford, a Scotchman, and one 
of the Haldane missionaries, was the first to 
preach and baptize according to the New Tes- 
tament order in Prince Edward's Island, and 
the first churches adhered rigidly to the prac- 
tice of the Scotch Baptists. In 1826 the first 
church was formed at Bedeque that was from 
the beginning associated with the churches of 
the Maritime Provinces, though most of the 
others fell into line eventually. The differ- 
ences between the churches of Scotch origin 
and the other Baptists of the provinces were 
numerous ; the former insisted strenuously on 
a plural eldership, on the weekly celebration 
of the Lord's Supper, and especially that mem- 
bers of the church should not marry those who 
belonged to other denominations. A domestic 
and foreign missionary society was formed in 
1845, and the Island Baptist Association in 
1868. The latter organization was especially 
useful in promoting denominational advance. 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 289 

From thirteen churches and six hundred mem- 
bers it has grown to twenty-five churches and 
over two thousand members. 

The first union of these Baptist churches 
was formed in 1800 at Granville, by the nine 
churches named above, under the title of the 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Baptist Asso- 
ciation. In one respect it differed from other 
bodies of this kind, though in the main it 
pretended to "no other powers than those of 
an advisory council " ; for more than a quarter 
of a century it assumed the function of examin- 
ing and ordaining candidates for the ministry 
— the sole instance of the kind, it is be- 
lieved, in the history of Baptists. By 182 1 the 
growth of this body led to its division, for 
greater convenience, into two Associations, one 
for each province. The Nova Scotia Associa- 
tion, in turn, was divided, in 1850, into the 
Eastern, Central, and Western Associations. 
The New Brunswick Association, in 1847, di- 
vided into Eastern and Western Associations ; 
a Southern Association was organized in 1850 ; 
and, in 1868, the Prince Edward's Island As- 
sociation assumed an independent existence. 
These successive developments of organization 
are landmarks of denominational growth, indi- 
cating, better than statistics, the progress of 
the churches in numbers and spiritual efn- 



29O SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ciency. At present these Associations repre- 
sent three hundred and ninety-nine churches, 
with forty-four thousand eight hundred and 
forty-one members, reporting one thousand 
nine hundred and seventy baptisms during the 
past year. 

In Ontario and Quebec the growth has been 
equally marked. The first organization of the 
churches of Upper Canada was the Thurlow 
Association (afterward the Haldimand), formed 
in 1803 ; the Eastern and Grand River Asso- 
ciations followed, in 181 9 ; and others at fre- 
quent intervals thereafter. In Quebec the 
progress was slower ; the earliest churches, as 
we have seen, remained affiliated with Ver- 
mont Associations. It was not until 1830 that 
a Baptist church was established in Montreal, 
and not till 1835 that the Ottawa Association 
was formed. In 1845, the Montreal was 
formed from the Ottawa. The Baptist churches 
of these provinces now number four hundred 
and thirty, with forty thousand two hundred 
and seventy members, and report three thou- 
sand five hundred and eight baptisms for last 
year. In the last decade these churches have 
increased in membership twenty-eight per 
cent. , while those of the Maritime Provinces in 
the same period have gained less than ten per 
cent. If these rates are maintained another 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 29 1 

decade, the churches of Ontario and Quebec 
will be considerably stronger, numerically, at 
least, than their elder sisters. 

Early in their history the Baptists of the 
Maritime Provinces acknowledged the obliga- 
tions of the Great Commission, and to the best 
of their power fulfilled them. A missionary 
society was formed as early as 181 5 in Nova 
Scotia, and a similar organization followed in 
New Brunswick in 1820. Both of these socie- 
ties vigorously prosecuted work at home and 
abroad for many years. In 1846 these socie- 
ties were consolidated into one, known as 
' ' The Baptist Convention of the Maritime 
Provinces. ' ' Each Association in Nova Scotia, 
New Brunswick, and Prince Edward' s Island is 
entitled to send two delegates to each meeting 
of this body, and each contributing church 
may send one member. Two Boards for Home 
and Foreign Missions direct the convention's 
aggressive work, in addition to which there 
are Boards for Ministerial Education and Min- 
isterial Relief; while close relations are main- 
tained with Acadia College by nominating every 
three years six new members of its Board of 
Governors. 

The Canada Baptist Missionary Society was 
organized in June, 1837, through the agency 
of the Ottawa Association, and its headquarters 



292 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

were in Montreal. After some years of check- 
ered existence, it finally succumbed to the 
stress of the communion controversies. In 
spite of its disclaimers, it was suspected of 
being too friendly to open communion, and 
lost the support of the strict communionists. 
The latter finally formed the organizations in 
which they could have more confidence : the 
Western Canada Baptist Home Mission Soci- 
ety, in 1854, and the Foreign Mission Society 
of Ontario and Quebec, in 1866. The latter 
was for the first seven years of its life an auxil- 
iary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, 
but since 1873 has been independent, and 
maintains a flourishing mission among the 
Telugus. Home mission work among the In- 
dians has been a special feature of the Cana- 
dian Baptist missionary enterprises. The 
Grand Ligne Mission among the French Cath- 
olics, founded in 1835, was for a time unde- 
nominational and independent, but for more 
than fifty years has been carried on under 
Baptist auspices, though Pedobaptists have 
also, to some extent, promoted the work. It 
is said that more than five thousand have been 
brought to the knowledge of the truth through 
this mission, many of whom are unofficial mis- 
sionaries among their own people in Canada 
and New England. 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 293 

In 1888 a bill was passed by the Dominion 
Parliament consolidating all the previously ex- 
isting societies (except the Grand Ligne Mis- 
sion), including some not named above, into 
" The Baptist Convention of Ontario and Que- 
bec. " Five Boards — Home Mission, Foreign 
Mission, Ministerial Superannuation and Wid- 
ows' and Orphans', Publication, Church Edi- 
fice — conduct the work formerly done by these 
various societies, and the churches thus have 
direct relations with a single delegated body, 
which is their agent in all general denomina- 
tional work. This seems to be almost an ideal 
method of organization, and must be a pow- 
erful promotive of denominational unity and 
efficiency. Since 1881 Manitoba and the 
Northwest has had a separate convention. 

In 1828, when the Baptists of Nova Scotia 
had but twenty-nine churches and one thou- 
sand seven hundred and seventy-two members, 
they established an academy at Horton ; in 
1838 they established Acadia College ; and in 
1 86 1 a seminary for young women. The three 
institutions are still prosperous, and have to- 
gether about three hundred and thirty students. 
The institutions are governed by a Board of 
trustees appointed by the convention of the 
Maritime Provinces. The New Brunswick 
Baptists established an academy at Frederick- 



294 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ton, which ceased to exist some years ago ; it 
had a successor at St. Martins, with better 
prospects of permanence for a time, but that 
has also succumbed. The Baptists of Quebec 
were unfortunate in their sole educational ven- 
ture, that of establishing a college at Montreal. 
In was founded in 1838, and after a few years 
erected a fine stone building, which proved too 
costly an enterprise. After struggling vainly 
with debts for some years, in 1849 it was found 
necessary to sell the property, liquidate the 
debts, and let the college perish. Many causes 
contributed to its downfull, its location being 
perhaps the chief. 

The Baptists of Ontario have been more for- 
tunate, in part perhaps by reason of greater 
prudence. They established a college at 
Woodstock about i860, with both an arts and 
a theological department. Many of the most 
useful ministers of the Dominion, and some in 
the United States, received their training there. 
In 1880, the liberality of the late William Mc- 
Master founded the Toronto Baptist College, 
a theological seminary at first, to which the 
theological department of Woodstock was 
transferred. This was enlarged later into Mc- 
Master University, an arts department being 
established in connection with the theological, 
and Woodstock being voluntarily reduced to 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 295 

the grade of an academy and feeder of the uni- 
versity. A college for women, known as Moul- 
ton College, has since- been established by Mrs. 
McMaster {nee Moulton), and is affiliated with 
the university. 

Men still living can remember the beginning 
of a new Baptist history in Europe. In 1832 
the Triennial Convention established a mission 
in France, and a Baptist chapel was opened in 
Paris by Rev. J. C. Rostan, a Frenchman who 
had for some years been a resident of the 
United States. He died of cholera the follow- 
ing year, and Rev. Isaac Willmarth, a recent 
graduate of Newton Theological Institution, 
was sent out to take charge of the work. A 
church was organized in 1835, of six members, 
and the following year the first native pastor, 
Rev. Joseph Thieffry, was ordained. He la- 
bored in the north of France until his death, 
at an advanced age, choosing that field of labor 
because there were in existence there churches 
holding substantially the principle of Baptists, 
though often defective in organization, and 
holding various errors of doctrine. By 1838 
there were seven churches and one hundred 
and forty-two members connected with the 
mission. 

When the mission was begun, the opportu- 
nity was thought to be especially favorable. 



296 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The revolution that had placed Louis Philippe 
on the throne had done much to lessen the 
hold of the Church of Rome on the French 
people, it was believed. But it soon turned 
out that the ' ' citizen king ' ' was as thoroughly 
priestridden as any Bourbon, and the Baptists 
met with continued and bitter persecution. 
At Genlis, where a member had built a church 
on his own estate, the magistrate would not 
permit it to be opened for eleven years. Every 
preacher or colporter was liable to arrest, and 
punishment by fine or imprisonment ; and 
against many of them the law was rigorously 
enforced. The legislative chambers made it a 
penal offense for any association of more than 
twenty persons to meet for religious worship 
without the consent of the government, and 
punished any one who permitted his house to 
be used for such an assemblage, by a fine of 
sixteen to two hundred francs. It was not 
until the revolution of 1848 that this state of 
things was ended. With the establishment of 
the Republic, toleration became the fact as it 
was already the fundamental law in France ; 
and serious persecution has never since been 
known. 

The church first formed in Paris was scat- 
tered during these times of civil turmoil and 
religious persecution. It was reorganized in 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 297 

1850 with four members, and in spite of many 
obstacles continued to grow, until, in 1863, it 
numbered eighty-four members. In 1872 the 
church built, with generous assistance from 
England and America, a neat and commodious 
chapel. The only American workers since 
1856 have been those connected with the 
establishment of the theological school in Paris, 
which was begun in 1879 by Rev. Edward C. 
Mitchell, and continued since 1883 by Rev. 
Henri Andru. Quite a number of the younger 
French Baptist ministers are graduates of this 
school, and their labors should be of the great- 
est aid in the future growth of the Baptists of 
France. In the last report available there are 
said to be forty-five churches, with thirty-five 
ordained ministers, and two thousand and 
forty-eight members, and two hundred and 
eighty were baptized during the year. 

The name Baptist has been an epithet of 
scorn and contempt in Germany for centuries. 
The German people have never been able or 
willing to forget the disorders at Miilhausen 
and Miinster during the sixteenth century, the 
blame for which was unjustly laid upon the 
Anabaptists of that period. For a man to pro- 
fess himself a Baptist in that country is, there- 
fore, to suggest that he is likely to believe in 
propagating the kingdom of Christ by the 



298 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

sword, in communism, polygamy, and various 
other horrifying things. In spite of this deep- 
seated prejudice, Germany is precisely the 
country of Europe where Baptists have during 
the present century made their most rapid, 
most healthy, and most permanent advances. 
This is because the movement originated on 
German soil and with German people, not by 
the agency of a foreign missionary. 

The leader in this work was Johann Ger- 
hardt Oncken, who was born in Oldenburg in 
1800, and having spent some years in Eng- 
land, where he became a true Christian and 
received some education, he was sent to Ger- 
many in 1823 as a missionary of the British 
Continental Society. He began to preach the 
gospel in Hamburg and Bremen with great 
success. Many were converted. After some 
years of this work, Mr. Oncken, by a faithful 
study of the Scriptures, became convinced that 
the baptism of believers only is taught in the 
New Testament or was practised in apostolic 
times, and that the only baptism known to the 
Scriptures is immersion. He did not know at 
first that there was a denomination that held 
these views ; but, learning of the existence of 
American Baptists, he sought baptism from 
Rev. Barnas Sears, then professor in the Ham- 
ilton Literary Institution, who was spending 






BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 299 

some time in Germany in study. April 22, 
1834, Mr. Oncken and six other believers were 
baptized in the river Elbe, near Hamburg, and 
on the following day these seven constituted 
the first Baptist church on German soil in mod- 
ern times. 

In the following September the Triennial 
Convention employed Mr. Oncken as a mis- 
sionary, and the Baptist cause began to make 
steady, and at times rapid, progress in Ger- 
many. By 1838 the Hamburg Church had 
grown to seventy-five members, and three 
other churches had been established. This 
success aroused the ire of the Lutheran clergy, 
and they complained to the Hamburg Senate, 
who directed the police to suppress the Baptist 
meetings. For a time German Baptists suffered 
severe persecution. Mr. Oncken was several 
times imprisoned and fined. In May, 1840, 
he was imprisoned four weeks, and on his re- 
lease all his household goods were seized and 
sold to pay his fine and costs. He was forbid- 
den to hold religious services at which any 
except members of his own household at- 
tended ! Members of Baptist churches were 
required by law to bring their children to 
Lutheran ministers for so-called baptism, on 
pain of imprisonment or fine. Their property 
was liable to confiscation, and in general they 



300 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

were treated as men who had no rights thai 
others were bound to respect. The cruelties 
provoked indignant remonstrances from Eng- 
land and America, and these expressions of 
enlightened Christian sentiment were not with- 
out their effect on the Hamburg Senate. After 
1843 Oncken and his church were unmolested, 
but in other parts of Germany the Baptists 
were less fortunate. It was not until 1858, 
however, that the Hamburg Church was recog- 
nized by the State as a religious corporation. 
In the meantime they had thriven wonder- 
fully. In 1837 a church was formed in Berlin, 
and soon Baptist churches sprang up in all the 
principal cities, while in the smaller towns they 
spread even more rapidly. They organized 
themselves into Associations, after the Ameri- 
can plan, and in 1849 the five Associations 
then existing formed a general Triennial Con- 
ference, which since 1855 has been known as 
the German Baptist Union, and has held an- 
nual meetings. Another great advance was 
taken when Dr. Philip Bickel, a German by 
birth, who had been educated in the United 
States, went to Hamburg to take charge of the 
Publication House, begun years before by Mr. 
Oncken as a private enterprise, and turned 
over to the German Baptist Union. The jubi- 
lee of the German mission and the death of its 






BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 3OI 

founder both fell in the year 1884. The seven 
members with which it began fifty years before 
had grown into nearly thirty-two thousand, and 
have since increased to about fifty thousand. 
These are not all in Germany proper ; the 
German Baptists have been mindful of the 
Great Commission, and have sent out mission- 
aries to Denmark, Finland, Poland, Holland, 
Switzerland, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Africa. Some twenty-three thousand of the 
members they now report have been gathered 
as the result of these missionary operations. 
Their most important enterprise of recent years 
has been the establishment of a theological 
school at Hamburg, in part by the aid of Amer- 
ican Baptists. In 1888 a new and commo- 
dious building was dedicated, that had been 
erected for the use of the seminary in a suburb 
of Hamburg. The course of study occupies 
four years, and the institution is doing much 
for the training of the German Baptist ministry. 
The Baptists of Sweden, in a sense, owe 
their origin to American Baptists, yet no 
American Baptist has been directly concerned 
in the work. A Swedish sailor, Gustaf W. 
Schroeder, who had been converted at New 
Orleans in April, 1844, a few months later 
found his way into the Mariners' Baptist 
Church, New York, and on the third of Novem- 



302 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ber of that year was baptized. The following 
year he met Frederick O. Nilsson, also a 
Swedish sailor, who had been converted in 
New York in 1834, and then was a colporter. 
Led by Captain Schroeder to inquire into the 
subject of baptism, Nilsson was brought to a 
knowledge of the truth, and was baptized in 
August, 1847, by Oncken in the Elbe, near 
Hamburg. In September of the following 
year the first five Swedes who were baptized 
were, with Mr. Nilsson, constituted a church 
with the aid of Rev. Mr. Forster, a Banish 
Baptist minister, and the following year Nilsson 
was ordained in Hamburg, and began to preach 
in Sweden. His success was marked, but the 
persecution that followed was bitter ; and 
finally, in 185 1, he was banished from the 
country, and soon after headed a colony of 
emigrants to this country, who settled in the 
State of Minnesota. This is not to be con- 
founded with another colony, sent to this coun- 
try in 1870 by Captain Schroeder, which went 
across the State of Maine, " poled in canoes M 
up the upper St. John, and planted a Baptist 
church at a place which they named New Swe- 
den, in Aroostook County. 

A successor to Nilsson was found in Andreas 
Wiberg, a Lutheran minister who, in 1849, 
became unable to remain longer with good 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 303 

conscience in the Lutheran Church, where he 
was obliged to administer the communion to 
converted and unconverted alike. Meeting 
Mr. Oncken, and being led to the study of the 
New Testament anew, he embraced Baptist 
views, and was baptized at Copenhagen by Mr. 
Nilsson. In 1855, he began laboring again in 
Sweden as a colporter of the American Bap- 
tist Publication Society; but in 1866 the mis- 
sion was transferrrd to the American Baptist 
Missionary Union. The Swedish Baptists have 
also suffered greatly from persecution, one of 
their ministers having been summoned before 
the courts sixteen times, having been impris- 
oned six times and once shackled for many 
days and compelled to pay a large fine. In 
spite of such discouragements they extended 
the work to Norway and Finland, and now 
number over thirty-six thousand. 

In October, 1866, the Bethel Theological 
Seminary was established in Stockholm, and 
has since been doing a work of great import- 
ance in the education of the Swedish ministry. 
In 1883 it entered a commodious building 
erected for its use in Stockholm, and has been 
more prosperous and useful since that date 
than before. Baptists have done much to sus- 
tain this, as well as the German mission, in the 
way of contributions of money from time to 



304 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

time ; but they have received their reward 
already. It is said, and doubtless with truth, 
that ten per cent, of the converts made by 
Baptists in Sweden go to swell the membership 
of Baptist churches in this country, and that 
an equal proportion of the graduates of their 
seminary become pastors of Swedish churches 
in America. 

The Baptist cause in Denmark, as has al- 
ready been stated, is the result not of anything 
done by American Baptists, but of the mission- 
ary enthusiasm of our German brethren. A 
Baptist church was organized in Copenhagen 
near the close of the year 1839, eleven 
being then baptized by Mr. Oncken, and ten 
in July of the following year, when P. C. Moen- 
ster was ordained as pastor of the church. 
Another church of eight members was formed 
by Mr. Oncken in September, 1840, at Lange- 
land ; and in the following October a third 
church of ten members was formed at Aalberg 
by Moenster. Rigorous persecutions were al- 
most immediately begun by the government, 
then an absolute monarchy. King Christian 
V. promulgated the following law : " That re- 
ligion alone shall be allowed in the king' s lands 
and realms which agrees with the Holy Scrip- 
tures, the Apostolic and Nicene creeds, the 
Athanasian creed, and the Augsburg Confes- 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 305 

sion, and with Luther's Minor Catechism." 
Pastor Moenster was imprisoned from about 
the first of December, 1840, until November 
of the following year. His brother, Adolph, 
who took his place, shared his fate in May, 
1 84 1. In 1842 Moenster was imprisoned a 
second time, from January to July. Drs. Ho- 
ratio B. Hackett and Thomas J. Conant, act- 
ing in behalf of American Baptists, visited the 
Denmark brethren in 1843, and attempted to 
alleviate their condition. High Danish officials, 
both in Church and in State, bore witness to 
the blameless character of these persecuted 
Baptists, and gradually the severities practised 
against them were relaxed. 

It was, however, not before 1850 that they 
began to enjoy much toleration ; and added to 
this difficulty they lost many of their members by 
emigration to a land of greater liberty. They 
began to form Associations of their churches in 
1849, and in 1887 withdrew from the German 
Baptist Union and formed a union of their 
own. They have not been unmindful of mis- 
sionary obligations, and have missionaries on 
the Congo field. The Danish Baptists now 
number considerably over three thousand. 

A mission to Greece, begun by American 
Baptists in 1836, proved a failure, and was 
discontinued in 1886. A mission established 
u 



306 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

in Spain by Rev. W. I. Knapp, has had a his- 
tory but little more encouraging. At one time 
it was nearly extinct, but it was revived by 
the sending of a missionary from this country. 
There are now several vigorous Baptist churches 
and active pastors, and it is possible that the 
Baptist cause in Spain has a future more en- 
couraging than its past. 

The Southern Baptist Convention has main- 
tained a mission in Italy, with varying success, 
since the year 1870. An independent mission 
was also for a time maintained in Rome by 
Rev. W. C. Van Meter, with the help of Bap- 
tists and others, but the Missionary Union has 
never established an Italian mission. Rev. 
George B. Taylor, d. d. , was the efficient su- 
perintendent of the Southern Baptist mission- 
ary operations for many years. At the pres- 
ent time there are thirty-five Baptist churches 
in the kingdom, from the Alps to the island of 
Sicily. There has been a good deal of senti- 
mentalism connected with this mission ; the 
idea of having a Baptist church under the very 
shadow of the Vatican has been most capti- 
vating to many minds. As was said at Bala- 
klava, < ' It is magnificent, but it is not war. ' ' 
That sort of thing may gratify the remnant of 
the old Adam in us, but it is not evangelizing 
the world. 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 307 

The only cases in which our European work 
has proved prosperous, or even had the ca- 
pacity of permanent life, are those in which 
there has been a self- originating body of Bap- 
tists, whom their American brethren have 
simply aided by counsel and money. Where 
we have sent out missionaries from this coun- 
try, or where the work has not been from the 
first carried on mainly by native Baptists, there 
has been a succession of mortifying failures. 
Nor is it difficult to see why this should be the 
case. Europe is not a pagan country. Its 
people already have the religion of Christ — in 
a perverted form, it is true, yet not so per- 
verted but that multitudes find in it the way 
of salvation. It is inevitable that such people 
should look with coldness upon foreigners who 
come to teach them, not a different religion, 
but what they have been bred to consider a 
heretical form of their own. 

The belief has therefore become of late 
years very general that it is unadvisable for 
American Baptists to maintain missions in 
European countries by direct support of mis- 
sionaries or pastors. So soon as churches are 
formed it is believed to be best that they sup- 
port their own pastors. Help may well be 
given from this country for the education of a 
native ministry, and occasionally for other ex- 



308 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ceptional forms of work. Whatever is done be- 
yond that, experience seems to show, does not 
tend to the ultimate stability of the churches or 
the permanent growth of the cause. Churches, 
like men, are the better for being self-reliant, 
and early learning to stand alone. It is an 
open question whether aiding churches in our 
own country has not too frequently resulted, 
like indiscriminate giving to beggars, in pau- 
perizing a large number of bodies that if prop- 
erly stimulated to self-help might long since 
have become robust. But this is to leave the 
domain of the historian and enter that of the 
social philosopher. 

It remains only to add a few words about 
the Baptists of Australasia. Rev. John Saun- 
ders, a Baptist minister, who had established 
two churches in London, became very desir- 
ous of preaching to the convicts and planting 
a Christian church at Botany Bay. He formed 
the Bathurst Street Church. His arduous 
labors finally broke his health, but a worthy 
successor was found in Rev. James Voller, by 
whose effort an Association was formed, that in 
1 89 1 reports twenty-six churches and one 
thousand four hundred and sixty-one members. 
The Baptist church in Melbourne, Victoria, 
was organized in 1845 by Rev. William Ham, 
and the cause has prospered continuously. 






BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 309 

There are now forty-four churches and four 
thousand five hundred and fifty-eight mem- 
bers. In South Australia the first Baptist 
church to be established was the Hinders 
Street Chapel of Adelaide, which dates from 
1 86 1. Progress here has been hindered by 
an excess of the spirit of independency and 
too little co-operation, but there are fifty-two 
churches and three thousand six hundred and 
sixty-five members. The Wharf Street Chapel 
in Moreton Bay, Queensland, was built in 
1856, after Rev. B. G. Wilson had preached 
there for several years, and from this the Bap- 
tists of the colony have increased to twenty- 
seven churches and two thousand one hundred 
and seventy members. During the past few 
years there has been a slight loss here. 

From New Zealand are reported twenty-eight 
churches and two thousand seven hundred and 
seventy : eight members ; and besides the work 
among the white people a mission is maintained 
among the Maoris, of whom there are still 
about fifty thousand. The Baptist cause here 
owes its present prosperity largely to the labors 
of Rev. D. Dolomore, who went thither in 
185 1. The first church was organized in 
1854, and from that time growth was steady, 
especially in the southern section. A Baptist 
Union was formed about 1880, which has been 



3IO SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

a great help to the churches, especially in 
uniting them in missionary efforts. Work was 
begun by the Baptists in Tasmania in 1834, 
but there have been meagre results here, in 
spite of many years of hard labor, there being 
at present but nine churches and five hundred 
and seventy-four members. 

According to the latest statistics, compiled 
from official sources, the Baptists of the world 
number four million four hundred and forty- 
seven thousand and seventy-four. By the end 
of the century the number will be at least five 
millions. 




CHAPTER XVIII 

PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

BS we have seen, the number of Bap- 
tists by the end of the present cen- 
tury is almost certain to be fully five 
millions. But a denomination that has nothing 
better upon which to congratulate itself than 
mere numbers is to be pitied. Numbers alone 
are not strength. Any body must be weighed 
as well as counted before its value to the 
world can be estimated. It therefore becomes 
necessary to ask and answer the question, 
What have Baptists contributed to the religious 
thought and life of the world, and what is the 
value of that contribution ? 

It may be sufficient to reply to this question 
that the value of Baptist contribution to Chris- 
tian life and thought is sufficiently proved by 
the fact that nearly all the principles for which 
Baptists have contended are now the common 
property of Christendom. This may seem a 
sweeping, if not a rash statement. Let us pro- 
ceed to justify it in detail. 

The chief of this distinctive principle of 

3ii 



312 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Baptists, as has been set forth in a previous 
chapter, relates to the nature of the church. 
Baptists have always contended that the church 
is not a worldly, but a spiritual body. Spiritual, 
not in the sense of lacking a local organization 
or visible identity, but because organized on 
the basis of spiritual life. In other words, the 
church should consist of the regenerate only — 
that is, of persons who have given credible 
evidence to the world that they have been 
born again of the Spirit of God. This princi- 
ple of Baptists, which was scouted at first and 
for centuries, has now won its way to general 
acceptance among nearly all Protestant denom- 
inations, such bodies as call themselves evan- 
gelical. In Europe, where State churches still 
exist, the principle has, it is true, made com- 
paratively little progress. Where citizenship 
and church-membership are practically identi- 
cal terms, it is evident that the church cannot 
insist upon regeneration as a condition of mem- 
bership. Every one who is born into the State 
and upon whom some form of so-called bap- 
tism has been practised, must be presumed to 
be regenerate, and therefore to be a fitting 
person for all the privileges of church-fellow- 
ship, unless by a notoriously immoral and 
profligate life he negatives the assumption and 
warrants the State-supported minister or priest 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 3 1 3 

in refusing him communion. In many of the 
New England towns during the early period, 
church-membership was essential to the full 
enjoyment of the rights of citizenship, the State 
being in fact and almost in form a theocracy. 
It was natural, therefore, that persons who 
lacked spiritual qualifications for church-mem- 
bership should yet desire a formal member- 
ship, in order to avail themselves of the accom- 
panying civil privilege. How this pressure 
brought about the "Half-way Covenant," 
with its disastrous effects on the churches, has 
already been told. It was for vehemently pro- 
testing against these evils that Jonathan Ed- 
wards was driven from his pastorate at North- 
ampton, and sent forth like Abraham, "not 
knowing whither the Lord should lead him. ' ' 
The Baptist churches, as we have seen, 
through insistance upon a regenerate member- 
ship, were a bulwark against the rising tide of 
anti-scriptural doctrine that for a time threat- 
ened to overwhelm evangelical religion in New 
England. The influence of these facts was 
potent, not only among the Congregationalists, 
but among Presbyterians and other Protestant 
bodies. The necessity was clearly seen of a 
reform that should separate the worldly from 
the spiritual elements in the church. Grad- 
ually but surely, without outward change in 



3 14 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

their formularies or an avowed alteration of 
practice, these bodies came virtually to adopt 
the Baptist principle of a regenerate member- 
ship. They still to a certain extent vitiate the 
principle by maintaining the unscriptural prac- 
tice of infant baptism, but they are quite rigid 
in the requirement that those thus baptized in 
unconscious infancy shall, on reaching years of 
maturity, make a public and personal profes- 
sion of religion before they are received into 
full membership. And in many churches, 
Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, if not 
in all, this profession is not a mere form of 
words, but care is taken by the officers of the 
church to secure credible evidence of regenera- 
tion before the candidate is received. In many 
cases the examination is quite as careful and 
searching as that to which candidates for bap- 
tism are subjected in Baptist churches. While, 
therefore, we regret that our evangelical breth- 
ren of other faiths do not see the truth as we 
see it and that they are yet, as we believe, 
rendering an imperfect obedience to the com- 
mands of Christ, we have reason to rejoice 
that Baptist example has so far borne fruit 
that these brethren have in so large measure 
adopted, as their rule of church order, the car- 
dinal distinctive principle of Baptists. 

We may note as a second contribution of 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRIN'CIPLES 3 I 5 

Baptists to Christian thought the fact that what 
is known as the baptismal controversy is now 
practically at an end. The issue has been de- 
cided and the verdict of scholarship is ren- 
dered. It is true that there are some Pedo- 
baptists who imagine that the war is still going 
on. just as there are said to be mountaineers 
in Tennessee who still imagine that Andrew 
Jackson is a candidate for the presidency. 
But Andrew Jackson is not more unmistakably 
dead and buried than the baptismal contro- 
versy. Xo scholar of world-wide repute would 
risk his fame by denying that the primitive 
baptism was immersion and immersion only. 
Not more than one or two Greek lexicons ever 
printed give any other meaning for the word 
baptizo than • * immerse " or ; • dip ' ' or their 
equivalents in other languages. Xo exegete 
of the first rank attributes any other meaning 
than this to the word wherever it occurs in the 
New Testament. Xo church historian of the 
first rank has put his name to any other state- 
ment than that in apostolic times baptism was 
always the immersion of a believer. The admis- 
sions to this effect from Pedobaptist scholars 
of all countries during the last three centuries 
are numbered by scores, even by hundreds. 
There is no voice to the contrary except from 
men of scant scholarship, and the question is 



3l6 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

no longer disputed by anybody who is worth 
the attention of a serious person. 

The candid Pedobaptists have entirely 
changed their ground. They no longer en- 
gage in pettifogging about the meaning of 
baptizo and the force of certain Greek preposi- 
tions ; they boldly acknowledge, with Dean 
Stanley, that ' ' there can be no question that 
the original form of baptism — the very mean- 
ing of the word — was complete immersion in 
the deep baptismal waters," but that such 
immersion is " peculiarly unsuitable to the 
tastes, the convenience, and the feelings of 
the countries of the North and West." This 
argument ignores, to be sure, the historical 
fact that sprinkling originated in the warm 
South, and immersion lingered longest in a 
cold country like England, but never mind 
that. The triumphant conclusion is fine — this 
quite unauthorized substitution of sprinkling for 
immersion, though it "has set aside the larger 
part of the apostolic language regarding bap- 
tism, and has altered the very meaning of the 
word," is nevertheless to be regarded as " a 
striking example of the triumph of common 
sense and convenience over the bondage of 
form and custom." 

To meet their opponents on this changed 
ground, Baptists have but to stand by their 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 317 

cardinal principle that the authority of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, as expressed to us through 
the Scriptures, is paramount with a true fol- 
lower of Christ. When he says, Do this, 
whatever it may be, his loyal follower has no 
choice but to obey. And he cannot long per- 
suade himself or persuade the world that it is 
obedience to do something quite different, 
under the plea that "it will do just as well. " 
Nothing will do as well as unquestioning, ex- 
act, glad obedience to Christ's lightest word. 

It would be flattering to denominational 
pride to say that a third Baptist contribution 
to Christian thought is the doctrine as to the 
place of the Lord's Supper among the ordi- 
nances of Christ ; but to say this would not be 
true. The Baptist doctrine in this respect has 
never been peculiar, though opponents have 
sometimes made strenuous efforts to represent 
it as such. There is not, there never has been, 
a Christian body whose standard authorized its 
clergy to administer the communion to the un- 
baptized. Individual ministers have stretched 
church law to cover their own wrong practice 
in this regard. It is not uncommon, for ex- 
ample, for Episcopal clergymen to admit to 
the communion practically all who present 
themselves and are not known to them to be 
persons of immoral life, and they sometimes 



3 1 8 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

invite people whom they know to be Christians 
not in fellowship with their church. 

These things are, however, done in spite of 
the rubric, which says, "And there shall none 
be admitted to the Holy Communion until 
such time as he be confirmed or be ready 
and desirous to be confirmed. ' ' If Episcopal 
ministers here and there violate the well-estab- 
lished rule of their own church, that cannot 
be regarded as altering the rule. This princi- 
pal applies equally to pastors of Presbyterian, 
Methodist, and Congregational churches that 
on their own authority invite to the Lord's 
table other than baptized Christians. Their 
church formularies authorize no such invitation. 

Only the exceptionally ignorant or the ex- 
ceptionally unscrupulous now reproach Bap- 
tists because of their ' ' close ' ' communion, 
since intelligent and candid Pedobaptists know 
and acknowledge that we stand precisely where 
all Christendom stands, and where all Chris- 
tendom always has stood from the days of the 
apostles until now, with regard to the qualifi- 
cations for communion. All that Baptists can 
claim to have done in this matter is to have 
cleared away the mass of sophistries with which 
opponents had beclouded this question, until 
no excuse for ignorance and no apology for 
misrepresentation are possible. 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 3 19 

But if Baptists cannot properly claim the 
honor of contributing this principle to Chris- 
tian thought, they can honestly claim to have 
added another principle, namely, that the 
union of Church and State is contrary to the 
word of God, contrary to natural justice, and 
destructive to both parties to the union. Next 
to a regenerate church-membership, this has 
been the principle for which Baptists have 
most strenuously contended and with which 
they have been most prominently identified. 
For this teaching they were from the time of 
the Reformation until a period within the 
memory of men now living, despised and re- 
jected of men, loaded with opprobrium, re- 
viled, persecuted, put to death. Toleration 
was a byword and a hissing among all parties 
of Christians, and religious liberty was an idea 
that apparently never entered men's minds 
until it was professed, defended, and exempli- 
fied by Baptists. It is difficult for Americans, 
living in an atmosphere of perfect religious lib- 
erty, where no law restrains any man from wor- 
shiping God in any way that his conscience 
dictates, or compels him to contribute of his 
substance to the support of any worship that 
he does not approve — it is hard for us even to 
imagine a state of society in which the majority 
determined what the community should believe, 



320 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 






how men should worship God, and repressed 
all dissent with savage laws and penalties that 
did not stop short of the stake and the scaf- 
fold. 

The once despised teaching of a few Bap- 
tists has become a commonplace of thought 
in our country, a fundamental principle of law, 
and he would be laughed at who should pro- 
pose its overthrow or even its modification. 
But to appreciate what change has been 
wrought by this idea in American religious 
and civil life, an American must study the in- 
stitutions of Europe, where there is no State 
that has not its established church, where dis- 
sent from the established religion is punished 
more or less severely by civil and social disa- 
bilities, if not by imprisonment and fines, and 
where even, if unmolested, those who dissent 
from the established religion are, nevertheless, 
heavily taxed for its support. This was the 
principle that prevailed during the colonial 
period in our own land. This would be the 
system under which we should now be living 
had not this despised principle of the Baptists 
become incorporated into the very spiritual 
and moral fibre of the American people. 

There is still reason why Baptists should 
continue to hear their testimony in favor of this 
principle. It is generally acknowledged and 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 32 1 

professed, but not always obeyed. The sepa- 
ration of Church and State is not yet abso- 
lutely complete. Appropriations are made 
from Federal and State funds for the support 
of sectarian institutions on one plausible pre- 
text or another ; a certain denomination is 
recognized as having almost a monopoly of 
chaplainships in the army and navy, and its 
form of worship is generally maintained in both 
services ; in some States inoffensive people 
who conscientiously observe the seventh day 
are prosecuted and punished by fines or im- 
prisonment for quietly laboring in the fields 
on the first day of the week. And it is a fair 
question for debate whether the exemption of 
church property from taxation is not a relic of 
the old idea of church establishments. Here 
are still opportunities for Baptists to lift up the 
voice in behalf of their cherished principle, to 
cry aloud and spare not, until it is not only 
acknowledged to be abstractly true, but is con- 
cretely obeyed. 

The Baptist principle of the independence 
of each church has also won its way to a very 
considerable degree of acceptance among 
churches of all orders. Among the Presby- 
terian, Episcopalian, and Methodist churches, 
although in theory there is a more or less cen- 
tralized and hierarchical government, the inde- 



322 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

pendence of the local church is practically 
unquestioned. The Methodist bishop still 
retains his theoretical power of ordering any 
man to any church, but it somehow happens 
that where a church desires a certain pastor, 
and the pastor desires to settle with that 
church, the bishop makes that identical ap- 
pointment. The Episcopal bishop has, in 
theory, large powers ; in practice, every Epis- 
copal church chooses its own rector as abso- 
lutely as though there were no bishop. In 
theory, no Presbyterian church can call a pas- 
tor, and no pastor can be dismissed, without 
the concurrence of presbytery ; but where both 
parties have made up their minds, presbytery 
always concurs. 

Baptists have also contributed their share to 
the world's advancement by their interest in 
missions, in education, in Sunday-schools, and 
in general philanthropic movements. The facts 
that justify this claim have been given in detail 
in previous chapters of this history, and only 
this statement need be made here, by way of 
giving completeness to this brief summary. 
Though not, strictly speaking, pioneers in most 
of these forms of religious activity, our churches 
have helped to bear the heat and burden of 
the day. 

Though Baptists have thus powerfully influ- 






PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 323 

enced other bodies of Christians, it would be 
a mistake to infer that they have themselves 
escaped modifications in belief and practice 
through the influence of other Christian breth- 
ren. Mr. Spurgeon was reported, some years 
ago, as proudly remarking that he had never 
changed an opinion, and that he then preached 
precisely what he did when he began his min- 
istry. The remark is probably not authentic, 
and was certainly not true ; and if it had been 
true, it would be a reflection on the intelligence 
of a man who could spend fifty years in the 
ministry without learning anything. Mr. Spur- 
geon' s admirers, and their name is legion, 
cannot think so meanly of him. If a great 
preacher cannot live and labor a half century 
without having his beliefs modified, still less 
can a large body, composed of many elements. 
some of them discordant, exposed to numerous 
hostile and disintegrating influences, and sub- 
ject to those laws of development and growth 
that affect all social organisms. Change was 
inevitable, but change is not necessarily dete- 
rioration. Whether the modification is for the 
better may be left for the decision of theolo- 
gians ; the historian merely records the fact. 

Modifications in Baptist faith and practice 
during the last two centuries maybe noted (1) 
in the character of public worship, (2) in a less 



324 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

rigidly Calvinistic theology, (3) in a change of 
emphasis that marks the preaching of our day. 

The feeling has gained ground among Bap- 
tist pastors of late years that the public wor- 
ship of our churches lacks elements of color 
and variety and richness that it should have, and 
that it has departed from the scriptural method 
in practically giving over the public worship of 
God to two hired functionaries, the minister 
and the choir. The introduction of congrega- 
tional singing and the use of the Psalter, as 
well as certain ancient forms of devotion that 
are the common heritage of Christendom and 
not the property of any church, has followed 
close on the conviction. Something like a 
general tendency in this direction is now ob- 
servable, but how far it will proceed it were 
vain to speculate. 

That both Calvinism and Arminianism have 
been so modified as to bear little relation to 
the systems once passing under these names is 
so well understood, and so little likely to be 
questioned, that it is not worth while to waste 
space in more than a statement of the fact. 
Each has reacted on the other, and between 
the latest statements of the two opposing sys- 
tems a critical student can discern little more 
than a difference of emphasis. Both assert the 
sovereign election and free grace of God as the 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 325 

ground of the sinner's salvation ; both admit 
that the will of man, free as regards all external 
constraint, accepts God's proffered grace ; the 
Calvinist laying the greater stress on the former 
idea, the Arminian on the latter. 

This matter of a changed emphasis has not 
been confined to theological circles alone ; it 
has affected every pulpit. Any one who will 
read the published discourses of a century ago 
and compare them with those of the present 
day must be struck by this fact. The same 
doctrines are professed and believed as then, 
but how different the mode of presentation. 
The eternity of future punishment is still an 
article of faith, but the preacher no longer 
threatens sinners with a hell of material fire. 
Retribution is conceived as something at once 
more spiritual and more terrible than physical 
torture. The infinite love of God as shown in 
the redemption of a lost world ; the atonement 
a satisfaction for the sins of the whole world ; 
salvation not a thing of the future life, but 
beginning here and now, not a mere rescue 
from hell, but the consecration of a life to God 
— these are the ideas that are most emphasized 
in the best preaching of to-day. To note the 
change is not to pronounce judgment on either 
the past or the present. 

Another change is at present in progress 



326 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

among Baptists, but it is too soon to attempt 
to record its history. Two parties are in pro- 
cess of formation in the denomination, one 
who call themselves Progressives, another com- 
■ monly called Conservatives. The names are 
not very happily chosen, but they are conve- 
nient, and their application is generally under- 
stood. These parties differ on questions of 
speculative theology, of history, of literary 
criticism, of denominational policy, of church 
order. At times there are symptoms that 
their opposition may break out into an open 
warfare ; at times a peaceful issue seems not 
only hopeful, but certain. 

In the judgment of men of other faiths, the 
most characteristic fact in the history of the 
Baptists during the last two centuries has been, 
not their rapid growth in numbers, but their 
marvelous continuity of belief, their orthodoxy 
of doctrine. It is the wonder of many mem- 
bers of other churches having elaborate written 
standards, and an ingenious system of checks 
and devices to prevent and punish heresy, that 
a denomination without a creed, without a 
government, with no central authority or other 
human device for preserving unity, with each 
local organization a law unto itself and respon- 
sible to none save Christ — that such a rope of 
sand should hold together at all, much less sus- 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 327 

tain a strain that the strongest bodies have 
borne none too well. 

But one cause can be plausibly assigned for 
this phenomenon, and that is, Baptist loyalty 
to their fundamental principle, the word of God 
the only rule of faith and practice. The Scrip- 
tures are easily ' ' understanded of the people," 
even the unlettered who approach them with 
open minds desiring to know the will of God. 
Such may not become great biblical scholars, 
but they will learn everything that it is im- 
portant for them to know for their eternal sal- 
vation and daily guidance. They may not 
become profound theologians, but they will 
learn the cardinal truths of the Christian faith, 
and learn them more accurately in their right 
relations than the student of some human sys- 
tem is likely to learn them. 

Loyalty to this principle has been the 
strength of Baptists in the past, and as they 
are loyal to it in future they may expect in- 
crease in numbers, in strength, and in unity. 



GREAT TEACHERS ' BIBLES 

At last, after years of trying, we have found the 
Best Possible Teachers' Bibles for 

$3.00 and $1.50 

They have all needed Helps, and the printing and 
binding are just right. They correspond to the 
ordinary $5.00 and S3. 00 Teachers' Bibles. 

For Sunday-schools and for general use our 

25 cent Self-pronouncing: Bible 

is the thing. 

In precisely the same style is our five cent Testa- 
ment. We have other Bibles and other Testaments 
of our own, and at prices that correspond to these. 



Out of the Ashes has come 

THE PHCENIX SERIES 



After the fire new ideas began to prevail. We 
began to put the choicest of books into the cheapest 
of forms. "Beautiful Joe," "The Ministry of the 
Spirit," "How Christ Came to Church," and "Pil- 
grim's Progress," have all so appeared. We are now 
just adding to the series two exceedingly desirable 
books, ■ 

Dr. H. C. Vedder's Short History of the 
Baptists 

Dr. 0. C. S. Wallace's Life of Christ 

All of the volumes of the Phcenix Series are 

printed in good-sized type, on strong paper, and are 

well bound in cloth-boards. They each sell at the 

quarter of one dollar. Good literature ! Low prices ! 

25 cents each, 30 cents postpaid 

American Baptist Publication Society 



Be it Known 

To all Baptists! 

You can buy any proper book from the stores of 

The American Baptist Publication Society 

no matter where it is published, nor by what pub- 
lisher. We sell the books of all publishers as well 
as our own issues. 

THE prices are just right. They are invariably as 
low and commonly even lower than those of 
other booksellers. 

For accommodation we give credit to all responsi- 
ble persons until the first of each month. 

We will gladly advise with you as to books on 
any given subject; we will give counsel as to the 
best books on any theme. 

I I /E cause to be read every Sunday-school book as 
^ ^ it appears, and we are prepared to sell to Bap- 
tist Sunday-schools books with our guarantee that the 
teaching is true to our belie as Baptists, and that no 
immorality, or slang, or doubtful practice is sanc- 
tioned. We will refund the money in such cases, 
if a fault is found of this character in our guaran- 
teed books. 

[1 FTER a long experience we have come to know 
* \ about the best Teachers' Bibles. We keep 
these, in every possible binding and at every possible 
price. These are made by the different Bible pub- 
lishes. Our own edition of the Teachers' Bibles 
we can convince you is the best for the money. 



Colportage and 

Sunday-school Work 

IT was the first Society to send out a colporter. 
" House to house" visitation is the New Tes- 
tament way of reaching the masses. Our colporters 
have visited one million two hundred and eighty 
thousand homes. They should be sent into every 
city, town, and hamlet. 

A regular contribution from each 
church would help to do it. 

The American Baptist Publication Society is the 

Sunday-school Society 

of the denomination. It has planted over ten thou- 
sand new Sunday-schools. It holds over five hundred 
Sunday-school Institutes yearly. 

The Sunday-school comes close to the homes 
and hearts of the people. There are strategic 
points all over the land, where new schools should 
be planted. No better investment can be made 
than in Sunday-school work. 

Wbat is Your Investment? 



BIBLE DAY 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN NOVEMBER 



Bible Day was inaugurated in 1884. It 
is intended as an opportunity for every 
church as well as Sunday-school to make 
an offering for denominational Bible work. 
In 1883 the Bible work of the denomina- 
tion was committed to the American Bap- 
tist Publication Society. A Bible Secretary 
was employed, and the work has been faith- 
fully carried on. Nearly nineteen thousand 
dollars each year since 1883 has been ex- 
pended. 

This day is for the whole denomination. 

One-third of the funds collected goes into 
the treasury of the American Baptist 'Mis- 
sionary Union, for foreign work, .and from 
five hundred to one thousand dollars goes 
into the work of the Southern Baptist Con- 
vention. Out of it State Conventions and 
Associations are aided. There is great need 
in this work. 



Woes gout Gburcb ano Scbool fteep 
MMe Das? 



Cbilfcren's 3Da$ 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN JUNE 

In each year is so designated and set 
apart for all the Sunday-schools in the 
country to help the missionary work of 
the American Baptist Publication Society. 
It was inaugurated in 1884, and has 
proved not only a source of help to the 
Society, but invaluable in developing 
child life in connection with missions. 
It is an opportunity for the church to 
recognize children as a part of its minis- 
tration ; it is a time to teach them benefi- 
cence ; to lead them out of their own 
field into the larger fields of need ; to show 
them how one child can help another ; 
to impress the fact that every good thing 
they have is given them so that they can 
give it again to those who do not have it. 
Children's Day always interests home- 
staying parents in Sunday-school work. 



Does S?our Scbool Ifteep 1ft? 



AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 



Chapel Cars 

THE people are greatly interested in 
these cars ; not only Baptists, but 
Christians everywhere. The names 
of the cars are becoming familiar in the 
homes of the people — " Evangel/' " Good 
Will," "Emmanuel," "Glad Tidings." 
These names are significant of their mis- 
sion. The first car was dedicated in 
1 891, the fourth one in 1895, but in this 
short time five thousand souls have been 
converted in connection with this work. 
The railway officials not only give their 
earnest co-operation, but unqualified en- 
dorsement. 

The cars are now in operation in Cali- 
fornia, Minnesota, Arkansas, and Texas. 

Chapel Car Boxes for contributions 

furnished to Young People's Societies 
and Sunday-school societies. These filled 
help keep the cars running. 



TOll !2ou 1>elp ZbiB TKHorRl 



AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 



Some New Bool(s ^ 

AND 

^ Som^ Re-issues 

One of the greatest of forthcoming books is 

The Great Poets 
and Their Theology 

By Dr. Augustus H. Strong 

Dr. Strong's eminence as a theologian, added to 
his wide and deep literary knowledge, fit him pre- 
eminently for this task. 

The Rev. E. T. Tomlinson, Ph. D. has already 
attained to g eat popularity as a writer for boys. 
We shall soon nave a new book from him. 

Dr. George Dana Boardman's 

The Problem of Jesus 

has been wholly rewritten— every word in this book 
has been most carefully weighed — and gives the most 
masterful array of distinguished men who have been 
influenced by Jesus of anything in literature. 

The American Commentary 

can now be had by Baptist ministers on the " Instal- 
ment plan." A small sum is to be paid down, and 
the books are immediately delivered, every volume of 
the entire set, and the balance is paid in easy 'pay- 
ments, month by month. The Commentary covers 
the entire New Testament, and was prepared by emi- 
nent Baptists. 'Write us about it and we will give you 
the details of the plan and an account of the books. 



American Baptist Publication Society 



OUR NEW HYMNAL 



BAPTISTS ARE ENTITLED 

TO THE 

BEST OF HYMN BOOKS 

THEY SHALL HAVE IT 

I. The new Hymnal, now in preparation, will 
make the wisest use of the experience of recent 
years in hymn-book making. It will be thoroughly 
up to the present date in every particular. 

II. The selection of hymns will be worthy. Not 
only as to baptism, but in every other particular 
the book will be true to the faith. The dear old 
favorites will all be there and the best of recent 
hymns. 

III. The tunes will be the choicest of the old 
and of the new ; the richest collection of church 
music extant. Without making a bulky book, the 
old, familiar tunes, will be placed side by side with 
the new and unfamiliar. The book will pass under 
the closest scrutiny of keen-eyed musicians and pas- 
tors, prior to its publication. 

IV. Typographically the book will be a beautiful 
production. Clear print, durable binding, conven- 
ient form, complete indexes, and everything that 
can make a good book. 

The cost will be as low and probably lower than 
any other good book. 

Set aside the hymn book you may be using and 
get the best, the New Hymnal of the Ameri- 
can Baptist Publication Society 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 064 283 3 



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